


OtherWhen, Part V

by flamethrower



Series: Re-Entry [13]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, GFY, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-11
Updated: 2009-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-23 12:44:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 54,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/250441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamethrower/pseuds/flamethrower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alone in the desert, an old man learns how to be a Jedi Master.</p>
            </blockquote>





	OtherWhen, Part V

Only two weeks had passed, and already my time on Dagobah had me craving the desert with deep longing. Master Yoda seemed to enjoy it, but I’ve never been fond of humidity so overwhelming that there was no escape from it. If I didn’t think it would drain the power cells of my ship to keep the humidity at bay, I’d sleep on it every night just for some relief.

Sleep wasn’t much of a respite, either. There were worse things than pervading dampness—sitting bolt upright in the home Yoda had made for himself was one of them. Every single time, I cracked my head against the ceiling so hard I saw stars.

Tonight was no different. I clutched my forehead in the dark, swearing under my breath, hoping that I had not awoken the ancient Master.

“If keep doing that you plan to, sleep outside you should,” Yoda spoke from his curved sleeping platform without moving, and I winced.

“Sorry, Master,” I said, still trying to figure out if I'd done myself serious damage. “I think I'll just go outside for a bit, anyway.”

“Humph,” was Yoda’s only comment, and I heard the sound of shifting cloth as he settled himself for sleep again.

Knowing that I was done resting for the night, even if I hadn't just tried to brain myself, I crawled through the small doorway and sat outside in the dark. After a short time, my eyes adjusted, and I watched Dagobah's busy nightlife go trundling, crawling, scuttling, and slithering past. My head was pounding, but I managed to touch the Force just enough to ease some of the pain.

The dream that had awoken me was the same as all of the others I’d had during the last week. I remembered nothing, yet I woke up terrified every single time. Some nameless dread kept following me like a shroud, and there didn't seem to be much that I could do about it. Yoda was sympathetic, though I sensed that there were things he would not - could not - tell me. Still, even patient, ancient Jedi Masters get grumpy if you interrupt their sleep often enough.

I sighed, leaning against the rough wall of dried mud, and wondered what in the hell I was doing here.

The next morning I raided the ship's meager stores for caff when a failed meditation wasn't enough to help dispel the fog in my brain. Yoda might have been irritable, but the lack of sleep was taking its toll on me, too. Whatever was going on in my head, I hoped the dreams ended before I ran gibbering into the swamp.

I managed to get back into Yoda's home without spilling the caff, which wasn't easy. Yoda was standing over a bubbling soup pot, using up some of his precious grain stores to make breakfast. He was stirring it with a root from a local plant that imparted a taste very much like cinnamon. “Noisy you are,” he commented without preamble.

I smiled, sipping on the caff. I’d made it strong enough to strip my teeth – Garen would have been proud. “Yes, Master Yoda.”

“Things to do today, we have,” Yoda said, taking a bowl down from a shelf. He dipped it into the bubbling pot and handed it to me, then gave me one of the spoons he'd carved during the first year of his exile. “Eat you should. A long day it will be.”

Really, when Yoda had said that it would be a long day, those words should have been accompanied by ominous music. I took two more steps and collapsed happily onto the damp soil next to the pond near Yoda's home. My breath was coming in sharp gasps. My back and shoulders were screaming about how unhappy they were about carrying Yoda around all day. The rest of me was swearing about having to run the entire time.   When I was sure that I could speak without throwing up, I rolled over onto my back. Yoda was sitting on a nearby log, content to let me wallow in the mud, humming under his breath.

“I take it,” I gasped out, still winded, “that there is a point to turning me into your new hoverchair?”

“Mmm,” Yoda nodded. “Make you tell me yourself, I should. But pity I shall have. Out of shape you are.”

“That goes without saying,” I said, managing not to sound like a broken bellows that time.

Yoda glared at me for interrupting him. “At odds, your body and mind are. Damaged you are. Difficult for you to quiet your mind, is it?”

I nodded. That was an understatement.

“Retrain your body, we must, to feel the Force. Quiet your mind, you must, to hear the Force. Difficult, this will be. Time this takes. Have time, we do not. Brutal I must be, so that help you I can. Understand this, do you?”

I nodded again. “You mean: Kick my ass you're going to, and like it I should.”

The ancient Master chortled at my statement. “Kneel before me, you will,” he instructed. I rolled over and got to my hands and knees, wincing as my body protested the motion. I settled into place before Yoda, and he reached out to touch my temple. I felt the brush of thick claws against my skin, and the warmth of the Force came with the touch.

“Favored student,” Yoda said, peering into my eyes. “Relax, you should. Help you I will. Meditate together we will, hmm?”

I managed a shaky sigh, closing my eyes, and together Yoda and I started the work of trying to turn me into a Jedi again.

I think the kilometers we ran together had less to do with the Force and more to do with Yoda wanting to sleep at night. The nightmares continued for the next few days, but I was so bone-weary that I awoke in one breath and collapsed, asleep again, in the next. The horror of them couldn't break through my exhaustion. In the light of day, though, I knew it was only a matter of time before that trick wouldn't work anymore.

We rose every day at dawn and had breakfast, cobbled together from what the planet had to offer and what we'd brought with us from Alderaan. Long habit meant that I ate what was presented to me without comment. I had a new sympathy for all of Master Yoda's Padawans. Qui-Gon's cooking had been elegant by comparison.

Then, with Yoda clinging to my back like I was his own personal eopie, I ran through the swamps of Dagobah as fast as I could manage, with Yoda chanting encouragement in my ear. Sometimes he spoke the mantras of the Jedi code, the ones we both knew by heart. Other times they were the mantras from Yoda's childhood, nearly a millennium ago, and I puzzled over the changes in wording as I ran. Often, he would tell me stories that I had never heard, tales of Jedi that had fallen out of favor as the centuries progressed. After a few days of this, I began to understand the frustration I had felt from Yoda at times, especially during the war. He had grown up in an era that embraced a wider array of options for the Jedi than my own ever had. Reading of our past was one thing. Hearing Yoda speak of it in intimate detail made it real.

By mutual agreement, the one thing we never spoke of was the Prophecy of the Chosen One. Neither of us were ready to consider the implications of the ancient words in light of Vader's existence.

After several days had passed, I could finish our runs without collapsing afterwards, though I still was left shaking and out of breath. I could also manage to enter a meditative state without Yoda's guidance, learning to work through the pain that was my constant companion. “Better, you are getting,” Yoda said, his delight obvious even with my tenuous connection to the Force.

I nodded, wishing my body and mind would hurry the hell up and get with the program. As if sensing my thoughts, Yoda bashed my foot with his gimer stick, hmph-ing at me as I let out a startled whimper. “Patience, Padawan!”

I sat on the stump of a felled tree and rubbed my foot through the soft boot I was wearing. I didn't know whether to be disgruntled or pleased that he had referred to me as his Padawan. It seemed like being Yoda's student was a dangerous occupation. “Yes, Master Yoda.”

“Focus you should,” he instructed, pointing at a rock the size of my fist. “Lift that you will.”

It was the first time I'd even attempted to use the Force that way since I was injured. I took a deep breath, let it out, and did as I was told. Or tried to, at any rate.

The rock shattered.

I stared at the dull gray chunks, not sure what to think.

Yoda looked up at me with an inscrutable expression on his face. “Told you to blow it up, I did not. Again you will pick up that rock - and all of the pieces you made.”

Trust the little green troll to combat difficulty with difficulty. I clenched my hands into fists, then forced myself to relax. _Concentrate,_ I told myself. If I broke the rocks again, Yoda was going to demand I levitate every single crumb, and I knew I'd be standing here until I managed it.

Then Yoda surprised me by reaching out to pat my leg, soothing me. “Your time you will take. Feel the Force, Obi-Wan. Your place within it, you must find. Did this together before, we did. Do it together again, we will.”

I smiled; I'd forgotten all about my clan's first visits with Master Yoda. It felt like an eternity had passed since then. _Feel the Force around you, younglings. Everywhere it is, in all things. A friend to you it will be. Speaks to you, the Force does. Learn to listen, you must._

Listen. I closed my eyes, and heard the sounds of the swamp. Life surrounded us, more so than on most worlds. If Dagobah had ever held a civilization to push back nature, it had passed on before time out of mind.

Listen. I dropped farther down in the trance I'd unwittingly started, feeling the energy of that life, stark and intense. Unchallenged, it dominated here, singing in rhythm, balanced. The whispers of possibility tickled my perception, and this time I didn't chase after them. I let them grow until they were almost tangible threads.

Feel. I could find the place where the rocks lay in the dirt without opening my eyes. Micah Giett's voice came to me, giving me my first lesson in lightsaber combat long ago: _Your eyes can deceive you. If you trust them more than you trust the Force, you'll wind up dead. The Force will speak the truth to you, guide your hand._

Qui-Gon, ages ago: _Trust in the Force, Padawan. Don't think; feel._

The rocks were floating in the air when I opened my eyes, clumped together as if I were holding them in an invisible fist. I relaxed that hold, and they drifted apart. Without letting myself think about what I was doing, I found the fresh lines of each broken shard, and shifted each piece into its original position. For one moment, I held the rock together as it had been before my first disastrous attempt. Then I let all of the pieces fall to the ground.

I felt warm, balanced. It felt as if the Force was touching me with soft caresses, as if to say, _Where have you been?_

Yoda was speaking to me, but for some reason I couldn't quite hear him. Then the ground swayed, my vision tunneled, and Yoda's words turned into a surprised shout as I fell.               

“I thought he was going to fall on you,” someone was saying. Soft laughter. The voice was familiar.

“Hmph. Funny it was not. Worried I was, that…” Yoda I recognized.

I concentrated on trying to wake up, feeling like I was wading through mire to do so. I must have faded in and out, because there were gaps in what I heard.

“—not concerned about that. I'm just glad it's working.”

“What's working?” I managed to say, the words not as slurred as I thought they would be. I opened my eyes to find myself in Yoda's hut, and half-sat up in surprise. “How did I get…?”

“Carried you I did,” Yoda answered my second question, ignoring the first. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, and I knew without looking around that he and I were alone. “Raining, it is. Leave you in it, I could not. Drown, you might!” he cackled at me.

I rubbed the side of my head and winced; my cheek felt bruised. I'd probably landed on one of those damned rocks. “I thought I heard you talking to someone.”

Yoda's smile brightened. “Mmm. A good sign this is! Feel better, do you?”

“I…” I stopped, considering. “Actually, yes. I feel…twitchy.”

Yoda's ears rose. “Twitchy? Interesting, that is. Dinner you should eat.”

 _Dinner?_ “I slept through the entire day?”

“A nap you needed,” Yoda said, and levitated a loaf of fresh bread in my direction. How he'd managed to bake, I had no idea, but I wasn't going to turn it down. “No more questions will you ask me tonight.”

I nodded, willing to let questions of Yoda's mystery guest slide, for now. Instead, we simply…talked. I couldn't remember how long it had been that I had done nothing but have a simple conversation with someone. No war, no planning, no plotting another move in a long series of subterfuge. Just existing in one moment, in no hurry to move along to the next.

I lay down that night and slept without nightmares at last, though the jittery feeling I had would not fade. I awoke before dawn, feeling better than I had in a long, long time. I was even able to shunt the pain of my body aside enough to make breakfast, giving my old Master the morning off from that duty. I had a vague memory of dreaming about laundry, trying to find a beige sock in a basket full of white socks. In the dark. If that was a Force-sent dream, it was probably the strangest message I'd ever received.

When I asked Yoda over breakfast if he ever dreamed about socks, he snorted his breakfast, choking with laughter. I found myself laughing, too, and it felt strange - like I hadn't laughed in years, and wasn't sure I was doing it right.

I helped him clean up before heading outside. It was still drizzling, but the rain didn't feel as cold as it had been. I meditated in it, ignoring the fact that I was getting soaked, simply grateful to be able to connect with the Force again without having a fight on my hands. I still didn't know what had happened to me to leave me in such a state, but the pressing need to find out had faded. I was content with being alive. The rest could come as it may.

The twitchy feeling I'd described to Master Yoda didn't drive me out of meditation so much as I drove myself out of meditation trying to locate it. I looked around, thought about it, then got up and began another insane dash into the swamp.

It felt like there was something just out of reach, just beyond my sight, and if I ran far enough, I could just see it. I knew better, but I kept running anyway. That strange energy was pushing me forward, demanding I go on. I flew onward, taking a path through the snarls and twists of trees, just to feel the rush of wind past my face, _feeling._ Nothing else existed in that moment but me, the call of the Force, and the feel of my body accepting the demands I was making upon it with no complaint. If I'd ever wondered how Yoda could fight in battle for long hours, despite his advanced age, I realized now how it could be so. Through the Force, all things were possible. It was a statement I had never understood as much as I did in that moment.

I made one final leap over the pond and came to a halt, and I wasn't even breathing hard. I'm not even sure, if asked, that I would have been able to describe my state of mind.   I felt… _awake._   

I closed my eyes and let my head fall back, breathing in the scent of a swamp in the rain. Wet earth. Clean water. Stagnant pond. Damp wood. The moist fur of some distant creature. Warm air. Wet skin and hair, wet silk and cotton. I took it all in and let it go, trancing down even faster than yesterday and with no effort. I cataloged every sound I heard: Yoda at a distance, muttering under his breath at one of the local rats that kept begging him for food; the soft fall of rain through the trees and onto the water; the frogs that never ceased calling out. Those perceptions faded back, and the individual lights of every living thing around me grew brighter in my mind's eye. Then I crossed another threshold I hadn't even known of, and I could see the light of everything on the planet. It should have been overwhelming, but wasn't. I was a part of that web of light, too, and felt my place was within it, not outside of it.

I wasn't sure when my feet left the ground, but when I noticed I decided not to worry about. I kept watching that web of light, entranced to find that I could focus on one individual light at a time. When I did that, I could feel the specific aura of whatever it belonged to. I smiled to find that Master Yoda's new pet rat had wheedled a bowl of scraps from our breakfast out of the old Jedi Master, and was broadcasting a fair amount of excitement about it.

I sighed and mentally stepped back, more fully into the embrace of the Force. For my entire life I had been using the Force, speaking to the Force, letting it speak to me, but somehow…somehow I had missed this, this vital, _inclusive_ part. My strength had always been in the Unifying Force, but that, I realized, was a grave misunderstanding. I'd been seeing only a small part of what it had to offer. I felt like I had been wearing blinders, and after walking through hell, someone had kindly removed them.

I had never felt more at peace in my entire life than I did in that moment.

I felt him before I saw him, though I knew at once that he had been there all along. I couldn't help the smile that blossomed on my face as I opened my eyes and looked directly at him. “Hi.”

Qui-Gon Jinn looked exactly as he had during our last year of life together, if you could ignore the blue and semi-transparent part. The delighted smile on his face belied the sarcasm of his response: “It's about time, Padawan.”

We stared at each other as my feet touched the ground again, mutual grins growing wider, and then I began to laugh out of sheer joy. _My Master. How I have missed you._

_And I you, Obi-Wan._

It should have felt strange, having his presence back in my life again, but it didn’t. I had once imagined I would be anxious, or confused, or that I would dread being able to speak with him, to have to hash out all of the old insecurities and doubts of our last days together. Now that Qui-Gon Jinn was there, a muted, soothing presence in the Force, I found that for now, none of it mattered.

We hadn’t spoken beyond those first words, but that…that was familiar. That was right. Qui-Gon and I had once been able to go hours without speaking to each other, letting the whispers of thought, feeling, and intent in the training bond do all of our talking for us.

Now our bond was _in_ the Force, connected to a vast sense of everything. It took some getting used to, but I was in no hurry. Words would come again soon, even though I had no idea yet of what I was going to say. _Hi again. Yes, still glad that you’re here. Can ghosts have sex?_

No, no. I am not asking him that. I am, in fact, going to try not to even _think_ that again.

I was still mulling through all of this when Yoda announced, during dinner, that it was time for me to go.

I looked up at him, ready to voice some manner of protest, and the words died on my lips. The ancient Master was gazing at me, his eyes bright with unshed tears. His sadness was too tangible a thing for me to refute.

“Shall I leave straight away, or are you kicking me out in the morning, then?” I asked, smiling at him.

It was the right thing to say. “Hmph,” he said, glancing away, his mood lifting a bit. “Your dinner you should eat. And no more comments about my cooking, you will make!” he said, looking up and shaking his fist at the ceiling.

I could feel my Master’s amusement like a gentle ripple in the Force. “I wasn’t going to say a word,” Qui-Gon said, his voice just as strong and vibrant as if he had been alive to speak the words.

That morning I was far more sober about our parting, and I knew it showed on my face. “Worry you should not, Obi-Wan,” Yoda said, reaching up to pat my leg. “See you again, I will.”

“But not like this,” I responded, my sense of the future a faint yet certain thing. “Never again like this.” My heart ached at that; this parting would be the last thing between us while we both lived. It was better than so many thousands of others, but no less bitter for the circumstances.

“Death there is not, my Padawan,” Yoda whispered as I knelt before him. “The best of all of us, you have been,” he continued. “Faced the howling wrath of all the storms in the galaxy, you did, and look away, you would not. So very proud of you, I am.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, and he would have hit me with that damned stick if I’d denied it. I settled for embracing the ancient Master, feeling clawed hands pat my tunics. “I will miss you, Master Yoda,” I said, feeling the sentiment echo down the training bond we shared – one that had taken me weeks to recognize. We were letting it stay, for in the years to come it would be a comfort to us both. “I’ll bring you a Padawan the next time I visit,” I teased, getting to my feet.

Yoda narrowed his eyes at me, though he was smiling. “Do that, you will _not_.”

 

                        *          *          *          *

 

I returned to Tatooine by way of Malastare, stopping long enough in the bustling black market to pick up a few items I knew would be in short supply on Tatooine – and the more expensive for it. That left me with little credit to my name, and with only one option if I wanted to have a place to live for the next decade or so.

I found a buyer for Avery’s old ship – I never called the little freighter _Destiny_ if I could help it – without much trouble. He was willing to pay far more for the ship than I’d expected. It seemed that the YT class was getting popular for conversions among the smuggler sect. If I had been paying more attention over the past few months, I could have found a better offer, but what I’d just received would be more than enough.

The smuggler I sold the ship to waited as I gathered my belongings. Part of our deal was that I got his speeder bike and a hoversled that hooked up to the rear of the bike. Once I had everything stowed, he strolled over. Definitely Corellian blood, that one – no one else manages to make walking look like an exercise in sarcasm. “You look like you’re taking up residence on this hell-hole,” he said, giving me a curious look.

I hid a smile. “Perhaps,” I allowed. “It’s a nice, quiet place to retire to.” Even if it _is_ a hell-hole.

“Quiet? With Jabba around?” he shook his head. “Take my advice – become a farmer. They’re the only people he doesn’t bother with around here. Well, that and the Sand People, but they’ll kill you faster than Jabba would if you give them half a chance.”

“I have never understood why Jabba stays here. Nal Hutta would suit him better,” I said, thinking about the last time I’d been in Jabba’s palace. Even then, the dry, sandy environment hadn’t been kind to the giant slug.

“Are you kidding?” the young pilot replied, giving me a sardonic look. “He may be the head of the Huttese criminal empire, but the rest of the Hutts would tear him to bits for fucking humans in front of them.”

I narrowed my eyes. Right. I’d forgotten about that. Jabba had a bad habit of going after bipedal beings, especially ones that couldn’t fight back. The rest of his species didn’t appreciate it so much.

I told the young pilot that I would return for my new bike, and he waved me on. I left the docking bay, confident that he wouldn’t steal anything I had. For a smuggler, gangly Deke Zachi had a good heart and admirable intentions. I knew he would also take care of Avery’s old ship, since the first thing he planned to do was change the damned name.

I went out into the bright, hot streets of Mos Eisley, and it was only through years of training that I didn’t wince when a wave of heat slapped me in the face. _Gods_ , I thought. _Was it this bad last time?_

 _It’s hotter in Mos Espa,_ Qui-Gon offered. It was one of many off-hand comments he had given me over the last few days. It was taking me some time to get used to the fact that I now had someone following me around that liked to listen in on occasion.

 _Good to know,_ I replied, pulling my hood up to block out the worst of the sun. _I will not be buying property in Mos Espa._

I could sense that Qui-Gon didn’t fade back, as I was used to him doing after one of our short conversations. _It’s not too late, you know,_ he offered after a moment. _You could just buy a new ship and leave._

I stopped in the shade of an alley, ignored by the bustling crowd. “And do what?” I asked out loud. “Go out, join the Rebellion, or start a rebellion of my own, like Ferus has, get myself killed? What would be the point?” I wasn’t sure if he was testing me, or if he was genuinely curious as to why I was choosing to live on Tatooine.

When he answered me, there was a soft laugh in his voice. _I never pictured you as the retiring type._

“I’m not,” I muttered under my breath, taking to the streets again. I had seen the sign that marked the building I was looking for. “I’m just not stupid, either.”

The realtor’s office I found did business for the entire planet. Considering that property was not bought and sold here very often, she seemed to be doing well. I greeted the sole female agent, a gray Twi’lek in well-tailored robes. I shook the hand she offered, noticing several paintings on the wall out of the corner of my eye. Alderaanian, Fallanassi, and Firrerreo works. I listened with half an ear as she went through some sort of rehearsed spiel about the value of Tatooine property. She was definitely receiving pay from Jabba, even if I couldn’t yet fathom what for _._

Finally, she wound down and got to the first useful question. “So what is it that you’re looking for, Mister…”

“Ben Kenobi,” I answered her, inclining my head.

“That’s not a local name, is it,” she surmised, and when I shook my head, her eyes lit up. She was a salesperson, all right, and she thought she smelled an up-sell. “Well, then! I have the perfect property for you, right outside town—”

“No, thank you,” I said, glancing up at the flimsiplast property map she had pinned in place behind her desk. “I’m looking for something a little more…remote, Madame Zeleu’en.” I walked closer to the map, with Zeleu’en trailing unhappily in my wake. The Force whispered, and I smiled. One of the properties was almost calling my name. It was an old moisture farm, sitting on the edge of something called the Jundland Wastes. The acreage was fantastic; the old farm was easily the size of one of Naboo’s great lake islands. There was a home in place already, and as long as the power hadn’t yet failed, everything would be well-preserved.

“That one.”

Madame Zeleu’en made an unhappy noise. “Now, Mister Kenobi, you don’t want that old place. It’s in terrible shape, and right next to one of the most dangerous places in Tatooine.”

“Funny, I don’t see Jabba’s Palace anywhere nearby,” I said, glancing at her.

Her eyes narrowed. She was wily, this one, and didn’t like being pegged. “Begging your pardon, Ben – May I call you Ben?” When I was silent, she continued. “Ben, that place is not suited for someone like you. You won’t have any neighbors close by, and in a place like this, that can be disastrous. You’ll have no one to turn to if things go wrong.”

“I like my privacy. I assure you, Madame Zeleu’en, that is what I wish to buy.” I knew that part of her reticence came from the fact that it was also the cheapest property of the entire lot. I had a feeling it had been for sale for years. “I am going to do so, today, for full price, in Cho-Mar. You can accept that, or I approach the farmers that are selling their property privately.”

This time she didn’t bother to mask her hostility, and I smiled in the face of it. I was certain that she received a bonus for selling properties that belonged to Jabba, and I doubted that the farm had ever been in the Hutt’s clutches. “Of course, sir. I will draw up the paperwork right away. It will take some time, so you’re welcome to come back--”

“No thank you,” I said, dropping any pretense at pleasantries. “I would prefer to stay. I do like to read everything I sign.”

She swore under her breath and started digging around in her desk. Forged paperwork, too? Enterprising woman. “Of _course_ , sir. There will, of course, be a fee for completing the documentation today.”

At last, the bribery shoe had been dropped. “Certainly. Will five be enough?”

Madame Zeleu’en stopped fuming, giving me a surprised look. “Yes, actually. Five thousand is more than enough to cover the documentation…fees. I will need your identification, also.”

I snapped open a compartment on my belt and fished out the new stiff flimsiplast card, sliding it across her desk. She took it, raised an eyebrow at me, and began copying the information on it without question. It was one of my acquisitions on Malastare, and it was valid as far as the Empire was concerned. Ben Kenobi of Ator hadn’t existed in a long, long time. Not since I had attended my mother’s funeral, a lifetime ago.

I settled onto one of her chairs as I accepted my identification back. I hadn’t expected to enjoy playing this game, which was a way of life on this dustball. Part of me had come to terms with dwelling here for the foreseeable future. It had just never occurred to me that I might like it.

 _So you’re going to be a farmer after all,_ Qui-Gon mused. _Last bastion of the AgriCorps._

 _Keep that up and I will find a stick and figure out how to hit you with it,_ I retorted, and was rewarded by the velvety sound of Qui-Gon Jinn’s laughter.

 

*          *          *          *

 

I brought the speederbike to a halt, pried sand-coated goggles off of my face, and took in my new surroundings. The house – my house - was situated on top of a rise. It was a small, white adobe structure, and I was dismayed to see that the door was open. I had keys, metal things that opened an old-fashioned lock, as well as the few keycards the dying owner had possessed, but the realtor had never been interested in inspecting the farm herself. The vaporators were supposed to be in storage in the greenhouse below the house proper, and the working status of the cistern was unknown.

 _What’s wrong?_ Qui-Gon asked, sensing my hesitation.

“I’m just remembering what Anakin used to tell me about having to clean out womp rat nests,” I replied, dismounting from the bike and pointedly _not_ clutching my lightsaber for comfort. “Of course, it could be worse. If Jawas have set up camp in the house, I’m not getting them out with anything short of a thermal detonator.”

 _What? Didn’t you bring one of those?_ he replied, and I grinned at the light, affected cheer that marked my former Master’s sarcastic moments.

“Didn’t you hear? I’m supposed to be retired now. Thermal detonators are a bit out of my budget.”

No womp rats met my exploration, and no Jawas, either. The old metal door might have been open, but there was an interesting repulsion field in place in the doorframe that kept out the elements and discouraged small animals from entering. Inside it was dark, with only the faint hum of backup power audible to my ears. I replaced the aging battery packs before I dared to test any of the systems, and when I powered up the lights, I realized I was facing a disaster. The previous owner had apparently been fond of never, _ever_ throwing anything away.

In short order my first task became cleaning out the detritus of who-knew how many years. Long out of date data disks and readers, flimsiplasts of news and stocks and gossip from hundreds of worlds, clothing that had been old when I was young that turned to rags with a touch. I burned most of it, which included the furniture that couldn’t be saved. When the bulk of it was gone, I cheated, using the Force to push a wind through the house that cleared out any residual dust and debris.

When I was done I had a comfortable chair, a sleeping surface that was ready for the fresh bedding I had brought with me, and a few old leather-bound trunks that I was immeasurably fond of. I unpacked the hoversled’s contents, trading out a new cold-store unit for one that had stopped working some time ago. If there was one thing I wasn’t taking a chance on, it was losing my food to a faulty storage system.

The ’fresher was another fun day of work. I learned how the chemical processing unit that did away with waste functioned by having to repair it. I hadn’t thought to buy the necessary chemicals it needed, but I lucked out when I found a supply of them stored in containers beneath the sink. The sonics for the shower and sink faucet still worked, but both taps were capable of producing water. It was time to figure out if I still had a working water supply system.

I opened a panel and slid in one of the card keys, and with a squeaky protest a trap door in the floor opened. Lights flickered on somewhere below, and I climbed down a ladder into blessed, soothing coolness. I looked around, taking in the long, low tables covered in pots filled with true earth, imported at great cost from other planets. Some pots still had the bramble of dead plants in them, and I noticed a few familiar varieties as I walked in the direction of what I hoped was the cistern. “I hope I’ve gotten better with plants, or I’m going to get very hungry.”

“You did well enough with the valeris plant,” Qui-Gon said, solidifying enough to become a presence at my side.

“It takes work to kill a valeris, Master. Stubbornness was its savior more than my care.” I smiled, remembering the hardy plant that Qui-Gon had brought home when I was fifteen. It had been a birthday gift, even as I’d wondered if my Master was crazy for giving it to his black-thumbed Padawan. It had thrived in spite of me, surviving even my year-long absence from the Temple during the war.

“I wonder what happened to it,” he said, and I looked away, my smile dying.

“Imagine it was tossed out in the trash,” I said, feeling that familiar bitterness in the back of my throat. “Do you know what they’ve done to the Temple, Qui-Gon?” He glanced at me, probably knowing well enough what had been done, but understanding that I needed to speak. “They converted it into a fucking palace. _His_ palace. Renaming Coruscant wasn’t enough, oh no. Imperial Center, meet Imperial Palace. I hope it fucking crumbles underneath him,” I said viciously.

“Me, too,” I thought I heard Qui-Gon say, but when I turned to look he was already gone again.

A month later my home was up and running to my satisfaction, and I couldn’t put it off anymore. I left before dawn for my four-hour trip to the Lars homestead, gnawing on my lower lip for most of the ride. I had no idea if I was welcome. I had no idea what Luke looked like now, but I knew what day it was. I hadn’t been allowed to forget - my dreams wouldn’t let me.

It was the twins’ third birthday.

When the ring of machinery that signaled the homestead came into sight, I cut speed and drifted in slowly, not wanting to alarm whoever was about. There must have been active perimeter sensors, because after a few moments I saw someone climbing up the stairs from below. Beru waved when she saw me, gesturing for me to come over. Some part of me that had been clenched in worry relaxed, and I parked the bike and walked to meet her.

When we were close enough to touch she stopped short, and I could see the shock in her eyes. “What in the hell happened to you?” she whispered, reaching up and almost touching my face.

I waved her concern away, smiling. “Nothing and everything, Beru,” I said, and after a hesitant moment, she smiled back, willing to drop the subject. I wasn’t sure if my brother would be so easy to dissuade.

“It’s good to see you again, Obi-Wan.”

“It’s Ben, now,” I said, and she gave me a curious glance as she led me back down the stairs. “Or at least that’s what my identification card says.” I followed her into what turned out to be the kitchen, cool and moist and filled with the smells of cooking things.

“That was—Owen told me that was his name for you, when he was little,” she said, a shy smile on her face. “I like it.”

“Thank you,” I said, not sure what else to say, astonished that Owen remembered something from so long ago. “Where is my brother, anyway?”

She made a face. “In Anchorhead, trying to get our local mechanic to fix a vaporator that’s giving us grief. I told him to let Luke take a poke at it, but Owen is not in the mood to be trumped by a toddler.”

“Good with machines, is he?” I said, feeling a smile grow on my face. Somehow, I was not surprised.

“He is scary with machines,” Beru said, and there was a proud grin on her face. “Would you like to see him? I’m almost done making lunch. It’ll be just us, I’m afraid – Owen won’t be back until this evening.”

I nodded. “Yes, I would like that.” I stood, hesitant; it felt so strange to even broach the subject with someone else. “It’s his birthday.”

She smiled, delighted. “Is it? I’ve wanted to know when it was, but your father…” the smile faded but did not die. “Cliegg wasn’t sure. Obi-Wan – Ben. Ben, I’m sorry. Your father’s—”

“I know, Beru,” I said, my words soft. “It’s all right. Just…point me in the direction of my nephew, and I’ll bring him to the kitchen.”

She surprised me by giving me a hug before pointing across the sand courtyard to another wing of the house. I followed the sense of sweet whispering in the Force. I hadn’t needed Beru’s help to find the boy, and had only said the words to be polite. I could find Luke Skywalker anywhere on the planet.

I found a tow-headed toddler sitting on the floor, playing with a stack of plastic blocks. “Hi!” he said, looking up and giving me a beaming grin. “I’m building a ship. Wanna help?”

Gods. I might as well have been staring at Anakin’s clone. Bright, pale blue eyes, shining blond hair as straight as a stick, even a tiny cleft in his little chin. Realizing I was staring at the child, though he seemed puzzled more than worried, I forced a smile into place and knelt down next to him. “Certainly,” I said, no hint of a tremor in my voice. “What kind of ship?”

“I wanted a Corseci, but I don’t have enough,” he said, poking around in the pile. “So it’ll have ta be a speeder or something. Something like a…a…”

“How about a Skyhopper?” I said, throwing out the name of one of the models that was showing up with greater frequency on Tatooine. “I think you’ve got enough here to manage one of those.”

“Yeah!” he yelled, and I winced as part of his excitement filtered into the Force. He was _still_ a loud child, even with Master Yoda’s blocks in place. Thank the Force that the Empire was still leaving Tatooine well enough alone. “That’d be great. What’s your name?” he asked, starting to put his pile together without waiting for my help. I don’t think he really needed it. He was bright-eyed enthusiasm, a counter to Leia’s more reserved fire.

“My name is Ben. We’re neighbors, of a sort, though I live far from here. I just came by to visit with your aunt and uncle.”

“My uncle’s not here. He’s not here a lot,” Luke said, his nose scrunched up. I hid a grin, recognizing that expression. It seemed Luke and his Uncle Owen were already at odds.

I heard Beru calling Luke’s name, and touched his shoulder. He glanced up, then his eyes widened as he heard his aunt’s voice. “Lunch!” he yelled, getting up and taking off in an excited dash.

Sharing a meal with Beru and Luke was worlds away from the experience it had been with Bail, Breha, Leia, and Winter, but I enjoyed it regardless. The food was simple but excellent, and a good introductory course on what I was going to be growing. Beru gave me a few pointers on what plants to start with, given that greenery and I did not get along.

Luke was a chatterbox, and didn’t seem to mind if we were really paying attention to him or not. I could sense, though, that Qui-Gon’s attention was fully upon the child, and it was coupled with an intense feeling of heartbreak. I suppose I knew how he felt; my own heart was stuck somewhere in my throat just from being around the child.

After the meal Beru took off with Luke to start his schoolwork for the day, and I found myself at loose ends. I could have left at any time, but I was waiting for my brother, even if I was starting to get the sense that Owen would be happier if I didn’t.

At sunset I found myself walking the perimeter, and that was how I stumbled upon the grave markers, crudely etched with names and dates. The first two belonged to Shmi and my father. I halted, surprised, as I realized that the third belonged to my grandfather, a man I had heard of but never met.

“Hey, there is a reason that this place is called the Lars Homestead,” Owen said, and I glanced over my shoulder to find my brother behind me. I’d known he was approaching, but he’d managed to surprise me, regardless. My brother had the feel of a man who was used to making himself as unobtrusive as possible.

“I think I am stuck on the thought that my father, knowing well enough what this place is like, chose to come back here,” I replied. “Hello, Owen.”

He walked up to stand next to me, staring down at the markers with a pensive expression on his face. Damn, but if he didn’t look _exactly_ like our father! “Dad was born here. He met our mother in Mos Eisley when her family stopped over during a shipping run. She said she wasn’t going to marry him unless he was willing to move someplace where the pervading color wasn’t sand. He went to Ator, got married, they had us, she died, the Republic started to collapse. So, he came back here. Then Mom…”

His voice broke.

“Shmi loved me, didn’t care anything at all that I wasn’t her kid, and she’s the only mother I can remember. She couldn’t wait for me to meet Anakin, was so happy that we were brothers. We never had a fucking _clue_ that you two were Master and Padawan until the war broadcasts kept mentioning your names. I thought it was so perfect, that my Jedi brothers were out there together, and just knew that you’d come back. And you never fucking did,” he spat onto the sand, the liquid dissolving instantly in the heat. “Not until it was too late.”

“Owen,” I began, not even sure what I was going to say, but he cut me off.

“Why the hell are you here, Obi-Wan? Come to say hello before you dash off to be a hero again, while we yokels sit around with our thumbs in our asses?”

“I bought the old Newsun place,” I said, and he finally looked up at that, meeting my gaze. He glanced away after a moment, some of the hostility bleeding away, but not all of it. Not by a long shot.

“You’re not a farmer. You’ll wind up starving to death in two months.”

“I hadn’t planned on starving,” I retorted, still hurt, stunned, by the level of hatred my brother held for me. It seemed as though I had a lot to make up for, and I didn’t even know where to begin. I wasn’t even sure what it was that I had done.

“Hold onto whatever’s left in your wallet. Even the best of us have a crop fail now and then,” he said, and turned and walked away without a word.

I watched him go, baffled and irritated, before glancing back down at my father’s marker. The date of his death caught my attention, and I was startled to realize that I couldn’t remember what I had been doing that day. The events were shadowed in the blackness of the time I had lost.

“Hey!” Owen called, shaking me out of my thoughts.

I turned again, found him standing next to one of the perimeter markers near the stairs. “What?”

“Are you coming to dinner or not?” he yelled back.

I strode towards him, managing a cheerful grin in the face of that pervasive scowl. “Depends. Do you still throw your food at people?”

Owen shook his head. “Nah, gave it up. That’s Luke’s job, now.” He dropped down onto the first step, paused, and looked back up at me. “Beru told me you call yourself Ben now.”

“I found it fitting. Someone very dear gave the name to me.”

Owen breathed out a long sigh. “Yeah. There is that.” He managed a terse smile. “Welcome home, Ben.”

 

*          *          *          *

           

I accepted Owen’s reluctant offer to stay the night, and didn’t sleep a damned bit for it. I left before anyone was awake and the suns had yet to crack the horizon. It took too long to get home; I just missed colliding with an angry Krayt dragon and learned exactly how large – and how ornery -- the beasts were.

By the time I got back I was thinking only of tea. Lots of tea. Gallons of tea. I wasn’t sleeping very well as it was, and yesterday’s confrontations had left me shaken. My body was protesting the strange environment, the heat, the cold nights, the dry air – anything and everything was setting off pain that I was fighting down, pushing back. If it wasn’t pain that was bothering me, then it was an entire frigate-load of bad dreams.

Qui-Gon manifested next to my shoulder when I finished brewing the strongest cup of black tea I could manage. “Are you ready to talk to me now?” he asked, apropos of nothing.

I raised an eyebrow at him, ignoring the thread of discomfort his words brought me. “I’ve been talking to you. Did you have something more specific in mind?”

He smiled, and my heart stuttered in my chest. Force, dead or not, Qui-Gon still had my utmost attention when he looked at me that way. “We have traded words, Obi-Wan, but we have not yet spoken in a way that would qualify as a conversation.”

That was true. _So,_ I told myself, _continue with the truth._ “I’m not sure I have anything to say – no, that’s wrong. I have _plenty_ to say, Qui-Gon,” I said, looking up at him, stomping ruthlessly on old dreams. “Whether or not any of it is appropriate is anyone’s guess.”

“Fair enough,” he replied, drifting back a few feet as I walked forward. After giving the home’s controls a glance, making sure that nothing had exploded in my absence, I slumped down into my chair with my tea cradled in both hands.

“Keep it simple, then,” Qui-Gon suggested after I had settled.

“You always had a very annoying habit of asking intrusive questions when I had managed the least amount of sleep,” I grumbled under my breath.

He offered me a tiny, mischievous smile, settling with preternatural grace onto his knees in front of me. “And you learned the lesson so well that you started using the tactic on others.”

I drained half of my mug of tea and shook my head. “Can’t prove a thing,” I said, feeling the familiar vise-grip around my heart as I spoke. “Everyone I subjected it to is dead.”

“I could just go ask them,” Qui-Gon replied mildly.

For a moment I just stared at him, almost unable to comprehend what should have been a simple concept. “I was under the impression that…this thing you’re doing,” I waved my hand at him, “is…unique.” Hells, hadn’t we both been taught all our lives that becoming one with the Force was to lose your sense of self within it?

“That’s not entirely accurate, on both counts,” he said, reading my thoughts. “There are some that do give up their identity upon death, but it is still a choice.”

When I just gave Qui-Gon a bewildered look, he sighed. “Obi-Wan. Ask me your question, the one that has been troubling you for the past few weeks.”

Suddenly I found it hard to breathe. “Why are you here?” I whispered.

“I am here because there are things you must know, and I am in the…unique position to teach them to you.” It took me a moment to realize that he was as hesitant as I was. Sixteen years of distance lay between us, and at that moment it seemed bloody well insurmountable.

Damn my treacherous mouth, anyway. “And nothing else?” I asked, not knowing I would speak the words until they were free.

“Perhaps,” Qui-Gon said, and though there was a lingering sadness in his eyes, he did not elaborate further. I wasn’t sure that I wanted him to. Instead, he said, “You should rest. We have plenty of time for what lies ahead.”

He faded out, leaving me with so many things that I wanted to say, and none that I knew how to voice.

The next day, after a deep, dreamless sleep, things were easier between us. “Simple question,” I said, when he appeared in front of me after I’d finished meditating. “How are you doing that?”

“Complex answer,” Qui-Gon replied, smiling. “When I died,” he said, and either didn't see or ignored my flinch, “I was rather unhappy with the entire situation.”

“Couldn’t imagine why,” I said under my breath.

He paused, giving me a pointed look, but continued. “I couldn't help but wonder if the options I had been presented with were the only ones. Instead of just accepting the situation and moving on, as I had been informed was the proper way of things, I went looking for another way. I don't know how much time had passed before I found someone who could help me with my desire for contact. He was what his people of the Whills, on Alderaan, once referred to as a shaman. He told me that long ago, before the conflict between the Jedi and the Sith took its toll on our knowledge of the Force, it was common for a Jedi Master to disappear with death. Such was our understanding of the Force that we didn't merely die and pass into it - we discorporated into it, merged with it. Jedi Masters that were in tune with the Force could come and go as they pleased, though with time, our ability to reach this side of the veil becomes difficult. He can't do it anymore, or I would introduce you. He's an incredible man.”

Qui-Gon hesitated. “It was after my new friend taught me what he knew that I discovered that things were worse than any of us ever realized. Almost no one had the ability within the Force to hear me, and believe me, I learned to be loud and insistent. I had achieved my goal only to find deaf ears, even among the strongest of us. Anakin could hear me, but for him I was a faint, dream-like thing, and as he grew it was a talent he began to lose. I knew why, but there was no one I could tell, no one…no one that could be warned.”

“Yoda learned,” I said, remembering when the ancient Master had told me while we were on Dagobah together.

“And found himself frustrated, met as he was with disbelief by the few Masters he approached,” Qui-Gon continued, and there was a flash of irritation in his eyes, Force ghost or not. “There were others he wished to talk to, but the war saw to it that time and opportunity were lost.”

“What changed, then?” I asked, almost bewildered by the amount of information that had just been dumped on my head. “Why am I no longer…deaf?”

Qui-Gon looked away for a moment, pensive. “When you were injured during the attack on the Viceroy’s ship, you were closer to death than you have ever been. Considering how many times you have walked that line in your life…” Qui-Gon glanced back at me, and I did my best to ignore his reproachful look. “As you recovered, and your Force-sense returned, you did one thing different – you did not focus on one part of the Force over another. You just listened to what it had to say, no longer burdened with any preconceived notions on how you should hear the Force.”

Now I had even more questions. By the time all of this was done, I was going to be drowning in them. I also had the feeling that he knew more about the attack on the _Tantive IV_ than he was admitting.

 _Keep it simple,_ I reminded myself. “I don't understand,” I said at last. “I've never even heard of any sort of shaman of the Whills. They sound like a bedtime story.”

I felt more than saw the amusement he took from that statement. “The people of the Whills eventually took on other names, and now their existence is indeed a tale told to Alderaanian children at bedtime. Many Jedi came from their ranks, my new teacher included. He became a Jedi Master after suffering much hardship; eventually, he had the honor of showing Vima Sunrider the path to becoming a Jedi Knight.”

“Now we're getting into our own bedtime stories,” I grinned, “invoking the famous legends of old. Next you'll tell me you've been hanging out with the Sunrider clan.” He merely raised one eyebrow at me, and I swear he was hiding a smirk. “You are not.”

Qui-Gon had mercy on his former Padawan, and shook his head, smiling at me. “No, I'm not. I'm told that they moved on a long time ago. My friend said that he had been waiting for just the situation I provided him with, to pass on the teachings of old that time and war stole from us. Soon he will move on, as well.”

I mulled over what I was being told. We were both taught as children that becoming one with the Force was the finality of our existence, but apparently that wasn't so. The very concept, now that I was over my initial shock, was intriguing. “If there are further…options... why have you not done so? I remember you to be the curious sort, Master.”

His smile did not fade, but it became muted, melancholy. “I suppose you could say that I'm playing a waiting game of my own.”

My heart clenched. I changed the subject, certain that I was not ready to hear what it was that he was waiting for. “So, what's your new friend's name?” I asked. “If he was Vima Sunrider's Master, then he would probably have been involved in Exar Kun's Sith War.”

“He was a major player, actually. His name is Ulic Qel-Droma.”

My brain stuttered to a halt. I opened my mouth, closed it, then tried again. “Qui-Gon…” He was waiting for me to say whatever it was that I was thinking. “Er—Ulic Qel-Droma was a Sith Lord.”

I suppose I hadn't shoved my boot into my mouth after all, because Qui-Gon nodded, unconcerned. “At one point, yes. He was. But that changed.” With that, Qui-Gon told me the story of Qel-Droma that history had lost - perhaps intentionally. A dangerous Jedi technique, one that we had also lost the knowledge of, had been used by Vima's mother, Nomi, to block Ulic Qel-Droma from the Force after he murdered his brother in a duel. The shock of his brother's death had been enough to bring him out of Darkness, and the Force block insured that he would never be a danger again. Contrary to the legends, Ulic did not perish with Exar Kun - instead, Ulic betrayed Exar Kun, leading the Jedi to Kun's hidden base on Yavin IV. Before a battle could be fought, Kun himself ended his life, attempting some esoteric Sith technique that was supposed to grant him eternal life. The resulting cataclysm burned the entire planet's surface, leaving it barren of life for generations to come. The surviving Jedi erected a barrier to seal Kun's spirit within the planet for all time.

Ulic Qel-Droma went into self-imposed exile. The Republic was willing to forgive him for his crimes, as he was instrumental in ending the war, but the former Jedi couldn't forgive himself. I listened, fascinated, as Qui-Gon spoke of how Vima Sunrider, Nomi Sunrider’s daughter, interrupted Ulic's exile and demanded he teach her to be a Jedi Knight. Despite his reservations, and lack of ability to see the Force, he trained Vima to Knighthood. With his death, he bestowed that title upon her, and disappeared into the Force as his Master had before him - fading from the arms of one who loved him.

I realized I was crying when I felt hot liquid splash against my hand. Part of it was melancholy of my own - it had been long since I had sat through one of Qui-Gon's stories, and I had loved it then as I loved it now. Part of it was the realization of how much the Jedi had lost. We had been arrogant. We thought the Order to be at the height of its power and influence, when in reality, tales like this one made me realize that we had been at our worst. We were stunted in teaching, stunted in ability. Too little, too late.

“This is horrible,” I whispered.

Qui-Gon shook his head, reaching out to touch my face. A tingle of Force energy was what I felt, but I leaned into it nonetheless. “The damage is not yet irreparable, Obi-Wan. The Jedi can learn.”

I laughed bitterly. “What Jedi, Qui-Gon? There are a handful of us left, and that number shrinks every year. We are learning of our old strengths a bit too late.”

This time he did give me one of those narrow-eyed looks, one I had always associated with me saying something particularly stupid. “As long as there is life, there is hope, Obi-Wan. There are two children whom you and Yoda will be able to pass on these teachings to. The Empire may have brought about the destruction of the old Jedi Order, but the Force will not be denied. There will always be those with the ability to feel the Force, and they will learn.”

I thought about the size and power the Empire had claimed in five short years, and part of me quailed. Rebuilding the Jedi sounded like an impossible task, and yet I knew he was right. As long as one of us drew breath, the Jedi would live on.

Then of course, that damned prescience of mine kicked in like a boot to the head. Sometimes I wish it had stayed dormant. “I'm not going to live to see it.” In fact, at that moment I was certain I wasn't going to live past my sixth decade. If the Empire didn't get me, my own abused body would.

Qui-Gon closed his eyes, his expression pained. “No, and that is not fair.”

I snorted. “Not fair to whom? I'm getting old, Qui-Gon, even if neither of us likes it.” After all that had happened, the thought of dying at a relatively young age didn't bother me as it once might have.

“That is not the fate I would have wished for you, Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon said, a great sadness emanating from him. “This life has not been kind to you.”

I shrugged. There was little I could do to change things now. “Where there is life, there is hope,” I parroted.

I grinned as I felt an invisible hand swat me on the back of the head, and Qui-Gon shook his head. “You're incorrigible,” he said, and I laughed. Then he continued, serious. “The Jedi have faced hardship like this before, Obi-Wan. The Civil War of millennia past almost destroyed us, but still the Jedi persevered.”

I wanted to point out that the remaining Jedi of that time weren't all fugitives of a very large governing body with an intergalactic army at its disposal, but I refrained.

Perhaps I was learning something, after all.

           

*          *          *          *

 

Qui-Gon wasn’t around all of the time, which might have been a good thing. As much as I enjoyed his company, I also appreciated the chance to think. He couldn’t show up without leaving me with some new idea to contemplate, and the long absences gave me the chance to regain my center when ancient stories and riddles knocked me on my metaphorical ass.

Taking care of the farm took up most of my day, busy as I was harvesting the water that the vaporators pulled in, getting the underground greenhouse ready for planting, and tinkering with a resistant, ancient cistern. I was glad of the work; it kept me from dwelling on the past, from analyzing my actions and blaming myself for every mistake made. I saved that activity for when I couldn’t sleep at night.

I was surprised to find that, between my work and Qui-Gon’s irregular visits and impromptu lessons, I was almost content. Not happy – not by a long shot. Yet I knew I could live this way and not drown in despair, for it was not a bad sort of life to have. I was even beginning to grow accustomed to the blistering heat of the twin suns, though I still avoided the searing fire of midday.

When the seeds I had planted unfurled their first tiny green shoots under the artificial lights in the greenhouse, I sat down there for hours, entranced. It wasn’t as if I had never gardened before, but then others had been involved, guaranteeing the delicate plants a chance at life. To know that I had managed this on my own filled me with wonder, along with a sense of underlying panic that I would screw up one day and wake up to a basement full of dead things.

Maybe that fear affected my dreams, though Force knows I certainly didn’t need the help. I was starting to dream of being forced to wander the destroyed Temple at night, alone, surrounded by the dead. Not even the typical traffic noises of Coruscant could be heard. It was as if I had stepped into a realm in which no life was allowed to exist. I could have awoken myself, leaving the dreams behind, but I never did. It seemed fitting that I should be trapped there with them.

I dreamed of the shattered Temple off and on, watching my crops grow, bringing life to a farm that had not seen it in decades. One evening a few weeks later I thinned out the seedlings, giving them new room to grow and absolutely horrified by the life that I’d had to snuff out in the process. I was losing my balance and part of me knew it, but the rest of me was in no mood to be bothered.

That night, I dropped off into dreams and found myself home again. There were more bodies in the Temple, and this time I noticed what I had missed before – the horrible, sickening smell of rot.

I had made my way down the long stairs to the main entrance, once the busiest place in the Temple, now as silent as the tomb it had become. I was almost gagging on the stench. When movement caught my attention, I stopped and stared, because _the dead were getting UP._

I watched, too horrified to move, barely able to comprehend what I was seeing. Everywhere I looked, dead Jedi were rising to their feet, beginning to wander around, making dreadful sounds as bodies that were not meant to move again were forced into motion.

They could see me. That was worse – the dead, staring eyes or gaping sockets turned unerringly towards me. I took a step back and shook my head.

 _Oh, fuck no._ I would put up with a lot from my subconscious, but I wasn’t putting up with _this._

Except that I couldn’t wake up, and the first threads of real panic stirred within me. I could not _wake up_. This was out of my hands, and now that I had been noticed, every single dead thing in the room was heading in my direction.

I turned and began to walk back up the stairs, dodging around the forms that were coming to life around me, but this was no sort of life. Not when I could hear sick wet smacks as rotten parts fell onto the tiled floors, heard the shriek of frozen joints. I think if they had spoken, had one said my name, I would have lost my mind.

I turned into one of the main corridors and hesitated, not sure where the hell to go. Fuck, they were _everywhere._ Every single body: every adult, every child, every Padawan, Knight, and Master that had been in the Temple was shambling around, bumping into things. Slack features, no spark of life or intelligence to be found. I think the horror would have been less if there had been anger or rage on those dead faces, but there was nothing but this stupid, stupid dread and grief and sadness.

One of them lunged towards me, burping out a cloud of foul air, and I shrieked and leapt back, knocking another one over with a sickening crunch and squish.

 _Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods,_ I began to chant soundlessly, because I was starting to recognize faces, recognizing lightsabers attached to belts because the decay was too advanced for me to know my friends any other way.

I turned and ran, taking the back stairs that had rarely been used and were almost empty, even now, heading for the one place in the Temple I knew had been home to no living thing during the attack. I forced the resisting door into place when it squealed in its tracks, breathing hard and resting my face against its cool metal in the dark of my own quarters. This was horrible, this was gods-awful, I wanted out of this damned dream _right now._

I turned around and walked right into a lightsaber.

I was so shocked that the pain was a distant, almost heedless thing. I stared down at the red blade that pierced my heart. I was dead. There was no surviving that kind of wound.

I looked up, my breath stilled in my throat. I expected to find Anakin standing there, madness in his smile and screaming insanity in his eyes. I found pale yellow eyes, yes, eyes full of anger and ice, and the shock of who I found standing over me was too much.

I woke myself by screaming, sitting bolt upright in bed and horrified. When the echoes of the second scream I hadn’t been able to stifle came back at me, I realized I was awake, that I was on Tatooine. I leaned back against the cool stone wall, shaking and unable to even consider sleeping again that night.

When Qui-Gon Jinn appeared in my tiny kitchen some hours later, I was halfway into a bottle of the local ale and still far too damned sober for my liking. He eyed the bottle, and me, but he said nothing. Fine. Two could play at that game. I poured another drink and picked up the glass, slamming it back in one go. It burned, and it tasted like freighter coolant, but if your only intent was to get smashed out of your mind, it did the job.

“I think Nejaa had an interesting influence on you,” Qui-Gon said at last.

I nodded. “Thank the Force for Masters like him, and his willingness to teach other young Masters how to really drink. The man understood that sometimes, the situation does indeed call for it.”

Qui-Gon watched as I made another glass of freighter coolant disappear. “What situation is this, then? It’s a good funeral tradition, but…”

I hesitated in pouring the next glass, my brain momentarily entranced by the math involved. A bottle per body? I considered the amount of Jedi that had to have died the day Order Sixty-Six was issued, came up with an estimate, and then tried to multiply that by the amount of liquor needed. “Shit, I can’t afford that. I don’t even think I could live long enough to drink that much. Hell of a goal, though.”

“Obi-Wan.”

I put the glass down and rubbed my eyes, which already felt raw and dry, both from the alcohol and a distinct lack of rest. “I’m celebrating. I’ve quit sleeping.”

Qui-Gon opened his mouth to say something and then paused, giving me a bewildered look. “I think you might find that difficult,” he managed.

“If I can stay awake up to two weeks at a time without losing my mind, then what the hell? I can try it for a few years and see what happens. If I’m lucky I’ll go crazy, and then it won’t matter anymore.”

“Obi-Wan, what happened last night?” There was no rebuke, just a hint of concern, and for some reason that made me angry. I told him what had happened, told him of shambling, mindless corpses with the features and weapons of friends, and of the very end. I hesitated over that for a long moment, and it took two more refills of that gods-awful ale before I could say the words.

“It was you. You killed me. I could not wake up. I could not leave that fucking dream until you shoved a blood-red blade into my heart.” I was shaking again, just saying the words.

“Would it help were I to say that I would never do such a thing to you?” he asked, and I looked up to see his face drawn in concern.

I glanced away, suddenly unable to bear his sympathy. “Sometimes I think I would have been better off,” I whispered.

“Better off dead, or…” Qui-Gon shook his head. “I can’t even say it.”

“The first one.” Fuck, now I wasn’t even interested in drinking anymore. My liver would at least be thankful. “I could have left any of those dreams, for I’ve been having them often,” I said, staring down at the rough wood of my table. “But I didn’t. It felt…it felt like I should be there. That I should have to…”

I buried my face in my hands, unable to speak when my own guilt surged up, clogging my throat and searing my insides with hot talons.

I heard Qui-Gon mutter something that could have been a curse. “Obi-Wan. What happened is not your fault.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Please…look at me?”

I didn’t want to, but there was a pleading note in his voice that drove a wedge of curiosity through the guilt. When I looked up again, he was kneeling in front of me. There was sorrow in his eyes as he spoke. “A long time ago, I spent ten years waiting to die. I did what was asked of me, but I felt my heart was gone. Not even the friends that had walked through life with me for over thirty years could reach me, and though I knew it broke their hearts to see me that way, I could not…I could not accept the help they offered. Then, to my surprise, this scrawny child with dark red hair and temperamental eyes comes along. Despite the number of times I confronted death on that journey, he kept interrupting things. I was getting angrier with each passing moment, as what I thought I wanted was denied me. And then…you volunteered to die to save my life.”

He reached up to brush my cheek, the touch a soft whisper of energy, and only then did I realize I was crying. “I saw, then, that you were acting like the Jedi that I wanted to deny you the right to be. That moment made me realize that I hadn’t been acting like a Jedi – not for a long, long time. Eventually, you helped me to see that what I blamed myself for, I had not done. No matter how much it had hurt me, no matter how much I might wish otherwise. You saved my life, and continued to do so throughout the years we were together. Every time it happened I was left grateful, and astounded, and unsure of how I could ever repay that debt. Now I find that our positions are reversed. I have watched you shoulder the blame for things that are so vast, so terrible, that even within the embrace of the Force I can barely comprehend it.”

It was a long time before I could speak. “I don’t know how to let that go,” I whispered, my voice breaking.

He smiled. “You once worked so hard to keep me safe from the dark, Obi-Wan, when it was supposed to be my job to keep the darkness from you. Let me help you, Padawan. Let me help you walk this path.”

I stared at him. I didn’t know if I would ever not carry some sense of blame for what had happened to Anakin, but…I would be daft to turn down what he was offering. I managed a shaky nod, and the joy that lit Qui-Gon’s eyes at my acceptance went a long, long way to soothing wounds that a night spent screaming into the dark had left me with.

 

*          *          *          *

 

I woke up with my lightsaber in my hand, listening and trying to figure out what had pulled me from sleep. I detected no sense of danger, but my senses were on high alert, regardless.

I got up, my eyes adjusting quickly to the pre-dawn light, as I reached out with the Force. My eyes went wide, and I leapt over to unbolt the door, catching my unexpected visitor before he could fall to his knees.

“Hi, Master Obi-Wan,” he said, a hint of a smile on his bruised face.

“Ferus Olin, what the fuck are you doing here?” I exclaimed, helping him inside before kicking the door shut again with my foot.

“Bleeding,” he said, wincing as I helped him limp over to a chair. His hand was plastered to his side. “Lost my medkit, and you know my Master always bitched at me for not being able to Force-heal worth a damn.”

“That's true,” I said, knocking his hand aside before peeling his jacket away from the wound. It wasn't bad, as blaster hits went, but it was messy. “You also seem to have forgotten how to duck.”

He chuckled. “I guess so. You look terrible, Obi-Wan.”

“And you need a bath,” I countered, placing my hands over the wound and bringing the Force to bear. He relaxed into the chair as I worked, dulling the pain from the blaster burn as best I could while encouraging the damaged tissue to heal.

“Now answer my question, Ferus. You've taken a hell of a risk coming here.”

“I know.” He took a deep breath, heaving a grateful sigh. “I need your help.”

“My help? The rogue Olin, who is waging a one-man rebellion against the Empire, needing my help? I'm shocked,” I said, smiling as I peered at my handiwork. _Hmm_. Perhaps I was better at this healing thing than I gave myself credit for. Almost none of the damage remained, and I brushed my fingers over skin that looked more sunburnt than blaster wounded. Qui-Gon’s tutoring was paying off, I suppose, even if we had trouble working out anything else between us.

“Fucking newsfeeds,” Ferus said, scowling. “I'm hardly alone. I just…seem to attract all of the attention. Even Master Windu bitched at me for trying to steal his job.”

That got my attention, and I looked up into the troubled eyes of Siri Tachi's former Padawan. “You've seen Mace?”

“Yeah. But I don't know if I'll ever see him again.” Ferus ducked his head, looking anywhere but at me. “He's managed to get Darth Vader's undivided attention.”

I bit back a curse. “He's not dead yet, Ferus. He may even defeat Vader.”

Ferus was unconvinced. Really, so was I. “You and I both know the chances of that aren't likely. Vader is racking up quite a scorecard for himself. Anyway, as much as I hate it, Master Windu keeping Vader distracted is going to work out perfectly for us.”

“Why? What's so damned important that you came here for me?” I asked, concerned. There wasn't much out there that I could do that others could not, and I found myself strangely uncomfortable with the notion of leaving Tatooine. I had shirked my duty here for too long in the beginning as it was, and now that almost six months had passed, I was getting comfortable. Hell, I didn’t think I’d stayed in one place this long since my time in the creche.

“I found Garen,” Ferus said then, at last looking me directly in the eye. “I found Master Muln.”

I was dead certain for a moment that I had misheard him. “Are you - are you certain?”

Ferus nodded. “I'm damned certain. He's on Illum. Considering that there is a Rebel cell nearby, I can't afford to take in one of my regular teams to retrieve him. I need to get in unseen, and I know you can make that happen.”

I sat back on the floor, looking up at Ferus. He was one of the few that I'd rescued in that first year that was still alive, and thriving. To hear that he had found Garen, when I'd been certain of his death when Order 66 was carried out, was almost beyond belief.

Ferus was waiting for my answer, his gaze growing apprehensive. I nodded, standing up to clasp my hand to his shoulder. “Yes, Ferus. We're going to go get him.” I couldn't help the grin that blossomed on my face. “Let's go save our friend.”

 

*          *          *          *

           

“You know, I have been told this quite often over the past few years, but in your case it's rather apt. You look like shit, Garen,” I said, sitting down on the bunk next to him.

Garen Muln’s dark hair had streaks of gray in it, and frostbite had done unkind things to his nose, cheeks, and hands. His eyes were as expressive as ever, though, even if there was a bit of panic still hiding there. His voice was a broken wreck. “Kiss my ass.”

“Not until you shower,” I said, and he laughed. The laugh quickly became a cough, and I held him as fierce spasms wrenched his too-lean frame. For someone Garen's size, to lose so much weight was shocking. “What have you been eating, rocks?”

Garen sighed and buried his face in my shoulder. “I probably considered it more than once. Mmm, Ilum crystals. Crunchy.”

I closed my eyes, fighting back tears. “You're still out of your head.”

“Yeah.” He hugged me tightly, and I wrapped my arms around him. “I missed you, Obi-Wan. I thought…I thought I was the only one left. Then Ferus showed up, and I thought: 'Holy shit, I did die, and Siri will be along at any moment.' And then…well, then I woke up on this ship, and I hurt a bit too much to be dead.”

I took a deep breath, though that was a mistake. There was a reason I'd told Garen he needed a bath. Being on the run had not been good for any of us, but living in a cave for a year had almost destroyed my friend. “I—I believed that you were dead. When the Order came, I—” I remembered what had been yelled at me, the words from Garen that had kept me from drowning. “I heard you.”

Garen leaned back, wonder in his eyes. “Sith-spawned hells. I didn't - I thought I'd imagined that. Right when the Order was issued, I was in the midst of negotiating a peace treaty with some of the Separatists. My Masters would've been damned proud of that, you know? I'm not exactly the peace-treaty-brokering type. Before we even knew what had happened, I took a blaster shot to the shoulder, and some friends dragged me away before the clones could finish the job.”

“What happened?” I asked, glad that Garen had been serving with one of the later, speed-grown batches of cloned troops. They were miserable shots, the lot of them.

“I remember running, but at the same time, I couldn't see a damned thing in front of me. I was seeing this clear spring, with light shining down on it. I kept blinking the image away, but it wouldn't go. And then I saw you fall into that water, and…” He paused, struggling for words. “You weren't trying to swim. It looked like…it looked like you were drowning.”

Garen gave me a lopsided smile. “I scared the fuck out of Toma and Raina when I screamed at you. I can't even remember what I said.”

“You saved my life,” I whispered. “I would have died if it weren't for you.”

He chuckled ruefully. “Let's hear it for old pair-bonds, huh?” He held up his arms, and I reached out once again, and we held each other. For once in many years, my tears weren't for mourning. I thanked the Force that it had seen fit to give us this, when everything else we knew was gone.

After a moment I made him lie back down, getting him to rest. He protested, saying that was all he'd had a chance to do in months, but I glared at him and shook my head. It took a daunting amount of time and concentration to get a needle into one of his veins, as dehydrated as he was. Once that was accomplished, I got a line of intravenous fluid going and added a nutrient bag.

“Rest,” I told him, when he wanted to protest once more. “When that bag is empty, you can have real food. Unless you're fond of throwing up,” I added, raising an eyebrow at him.

He immediately shook his head. “No, no. You win. I'll sleep while the bags feed me. But then you have to tell me everything you've been up to.”

I nodded, watching as he drifted into sleep with ease, despite his earlier protests. Then I settled onto the floor, determined to wait by his side until he awoke. Our time together had to be short. Before I returned to Tatooine, I wanted as much time with my friend as possible.

To my chagrin, it was Garen's hand on my shoulder that roused me from a sound sleep. I'd curled up on the floor with my robe around me, passing out much as I had during the war.

“Hey,” he said, and I was relieved to see that he looked much better. I sensed, though, that he would never fully recover from his ordeal. If what Ferus told me was true, though, Garen Muln would soon be in a position to be of great help to the Alliance. No combat required.

“Good evening,” I said, with a quick glance at a nearby chrono. “Sleep well?”

“Easier to sleep when there aren't a million Force-sensitive crystals yammering at you all the time,” he said, grinning. “Now fess up. What have you been doing with your time, Obi-Wan? Coloring your hair, perhaps?”

I glowered at him. “I'm not coloring anything. Didn't you hear? White is in.”

He snorted. “I'll say. Confess, Master Jedi!”

I looked up at my friend, and after a moment's thought I told him everything that had happened when the Order had gone down. Everything - even Anakin's true identity, after making sure Ferus was not in listening distance. That was one thing he did not yet need to know.

Garen slumped back, staring at me, incredulous. “That's…wow. My friend, Protector of the Light.”

I shrugged, uncomfortable about the way he was looking at me. I didn't relish the thought of being tagged with a new nickname, either. “Beats the hell out of 'The Negotiator,' I suppose.”

“Most things did beat the hell out of ‘The Negotiator.’ yes,” he drawled, and I groaned, shaking my head.

“You really do feel better,” I said, struggling to my feet and wincing as I did so. Today was not going to be a good day in the pain department.

“You all right?” he asked, giving me a hand when my knees tried to buckle.

“Fine,” I said, giving him a tight smile. “Just getting old.” Noticing Garen’s hurt look, I kept my grip on his hand and began leading him towards the rear of the ship. “Come on, you. There’s a shower back here, and it’s got your name on it.”

Garen snickered at me, and then his snicker became an outright laugh when he found the note from Ferus taped to the shower door.

_Dear Master Garen: Shower, damn you! I will be hiding in the cockpit until you divest yourself of your collection of Illum mold._

“I am not moldy,” Garen said, half of his protests swallowed up as I pulled his threadbare tunic up over his head. His ribs were visible, and they were crossed by several scars. Lightsaber burns. I had about a dozen of them, myself. I ran my fingers across them, seized with some mad urge to mark all of my friend’s old scars.

“Stop tickling me,” he grumbled. I smiled and shoved him into a seat long enough to kneel down and get his boots off. My fingers touched cracked, abused leather, and I made a face.

“Good thing Ferus remembered your size and found you new things, because these are going into the incinerator,” I said, and then paused as my fingers touched metal. I drew his lightsaber out of its hiding place in Garen’s boot, my fingers touching a hilt that I had known since his Knighting. “Except this. You might need this again.”

Garen gave me a lopsided smile and nodded as I set his lightsaber down on the ’fresher’s tiny sink. “Yeah. Could use it to heat my food or something.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I said. “Stand up. Take your pants off.”

Garen grinned, standing up and undoing the buttons on his trousers. “I love it when you order me to do naughty things, General,” he said, shucking his pants.

“IN!” I told him sternly. “None of that, General Muln. Into the water before your dirt gains sentience!”

“You’re no fun,” he said, mocking rebellion on his face, as he dialed up a steaming shower before opening the door and hopping in. I was treated to an immediate yelp, followed by a blissful sigh.

“I’m plenty of fun!” I couldn’t resist teasing. “Just ask the Viceroy’s wife. And the Viceroy of Alderaan.”

“You are not going to stand out there and tell me that you’ve been shagging Bail and his wife,” Garen declared. “You will not tell such lies!”

“All right, the truth, then. It was only the once with the both of them. Multiple times with the Viceroy, though.” My grin widened as he swore at me.

We dwelled in companionable silence, and I basked in the steam that the shower was generating. I missed the feel of moisture in the air, missed this soothing, drowsy warmth. Tatooine being what it was, I could have a hot bath if I desired it, but gods, who would want to?

“Dammit, this blows,” Garen muttered. Then he swore some more.

“Something wrong?” I asked, concerned.

“I can’t bloody well lift my arms to wash my hair!” he shouted, ire in his voice.

“Want some help?” I offered, wondering if he would accept it. Sometimes Garen could be a prideful bastard when he was hurting. Then again, he was in good company.

“Yeah. Get in here, will ya? If you want Ferus to stop bitching about me polluting his ship, I’m going to need a hand.”

I smiled and shucked my clothes, swinging open the door and jumping inside. I was struck by hot water, lovely steam, and a very wet Garen Muln, who pounced the minute the door closed. Soap-slicked skin and warmth pressed up against me.

“Deceitful bastard!” I laughed, as he burrowed his face into my neck, growling. “You didn’t need my help at all!”

He pulled back enough to look at me, his eyes glinting, a decidedly predatory smile on his face. “Well, I _do_ need a hand,” he leered.

“You could have just asked,” I retorted, reaching out with my right hand to take in hard, velvety flesh.

Garen made a noise that was half-sob, half-moan. “Asking’s not as much fun,” he said, and then he was kissing me as hot water pounded down on us both. I reached around his waist with my other hand, pulling him closer. His mouth opened up to my tongue, and I tasted spice and caff, things that were undeniably Garen. Then he took control of the kiss, plundering my mouth even as he thrust into my hand. We broke for air, and he was already gasping, so close to the edge that I could feel that familiar tension in the back of my throat.

“Gods, you,” he managed, his eyes wide and luminous. “You still taste like fucking _tea!_ ”

I laughed and squeezed his hot, rigid length, and he groaned and tried his best to press as much of himself against me as he could. We fumbled around in the confines of the shower, trying to make room where there was none, and then it was my turn to gasp as his warm, callus-roughed hand grabbed my cock.

“Come with me,” he pleaded, and the old pair-bond we’d made, so very long ago on Yinchorr, flared to life.

“Fuck _all_ ,” I moaned, and he laughed and our lips came together as we tried to damned well devour each other, teeth clashing. I tasted blood and jerked away long enough to bite into his shoulder, flexing the muscles in my hands as I squeezed—

That was enough, and he shuddered against me, hips spasming as he spilled hot liquid against my wrist. The mere sensation of his release flooding the pair-bond set me off, and I gritted my teeth at the intensity of it, something near a plea lodged in my throat as I closed my eyes and saw sparks dance.

I gasped, trying to figure out where the hell I’d left my brain, as Garen collapsed against me. I held onto him, supporting my weight and his with a touch from the Force, and thought to wonder if Ferus had towels.

It took me a moment to realize that Garen was shaking again, and this time for an entirely different reason. “Garen?” I whispered, nuzzling his neck with my lips.

He drew in a deep breath. “Gods, but I missed you,” he said. His voice broke, and Garen sobbed into my shoulder. I held him through the tremors that wracked him. My own eyes were bright as I realized how shaken my friend was, how lost he had felt for the last year – and how lonely. “I missed you. Gods all, I missed you so much. I thought I was going to die in that damned place!”

“I missed you, too,” I murmured against his skin, soothing him. “I’m here, Garen. You’re here with me. Breathe, Garen. Breathe with me,” I whispered to him, my hand curling at the nape of his neck. I repeated the words that had once eased my shattered heart: “Just _be_.”

He took a deep breath, and another, and I could feel the soft rise of the Force as Garen touched it, seeking out its soothing warmth. After a long, long time, when the two of us had nearly drip-dried in the warm air, his shaking began to ease.

“Thank you,” Garen whispered, his voice cracking. “Fuck, I told you I was a miserable excuse for a Jedi Master,” he said, lifting his head and smiling.

“Join the club,” I said, and part of me that couldn’t resist swatted his ass, gratified by his surprised shout.

“Bastard!” he said, taking my lips again in a swift kiss. “I’ll get you for that!”

“Good thing you won’t have to go far, then, isn’t it?” I retorted, and shoved the shower door open. “Come on. I don’t know about you, but some of us are _not_ that resilient anymore.”

Ferus entered the main hold sometime later, after Garen and I had dressed and Garen had done his level best to empty the ship’s stores of everything edible. Ferus glared at both of us, a ghost of his Master in the expression. “My towels better not be covered in cum again,” he muttered.

I raised an eyebrow, amused. “Is that a common occurrence on this ship?”

“You’d bloody well think so,” Ferus said, shaking his head before throwing something in Garen’s direction. Garen reached out and caught it without taking his eye off of his food, then looked at what he held.

“A fucking rock? Are you kidding me?” Garen said, giving Ferus a look that said the other should consider ducking.

“Hey, I thought you’d want a souvenir,” Ferus shot back, and then he did have to duck as Garen flung the crystal at him.

 

*          *          *          *

 

I returned home a week later, after seeing Garen ensconced in what Ferus’s little group was calling Acherin’s Asteroid. I had to admit, the base was well-hidden, obscured by a debris field and the energy distortion it created.

What I hated was walking away, unable to tell Garen it would be the last time we would see each other. It seemed kinder to leave him with more hope rather than less.

No one had been near my home in my absence. The residents of Tatooine still treated my little farm like it was deserted. Perhaps it had something to do with the odd reputation I was getting in the area for being a wizard. The wizard rumor was usually coupled with the rumor that I was crazy. I couldn’t have asked for a better security system.

I checked on my plants, gave them water and touched them with the Force, apologizing for my long absence. The auto-system had taken care of their basic needs, but I was getting used to talking to them. They were as part of the Force as I was, and tended to hold a sense of peace within them that I was desperate to find for myself.

 

*          *          *          *

 

“Tell me about the Sith,” I said one day, when I was sitting on top of a large flat rock at dusk, looking out over the great expanse of the Jundland Wastes.

“Why?” Qui-Gon asked, appearing beside me, seated on the rock with his long legs hanging over the ledge. The wind could not stir his hair, and I could see straight through him to look at the rocks on the other side, but the way he even now presented himself was enough to make me wish for things that could not be. It was funny – over twenty years later, and still I was faced with what I could not have.

“You obviously have access to greater resources than I do,” I pointed out, looking at the distant horizon. One sun down, second sun to go, and then the Wastes would come alive for the night. It was generally a good idea to go indoors at that point, unless I wanted to get eaten. “Tell me something useful. It might come in handy one day.”

Qui-Gon considered my request for a moment before answering. “The Sith have a particular affinity for scent, especially foul odors. Partly because, being that they are destroying their own bodies with the energies they choose to wield, they have to get used to the smell of their own rot. On the other hand, it does help them to identify their own kind – the decay of the Dark Side becomes an odor in and of itself, and they seek it out, finding comfort where they might not find it otherwise.”

“That’s…awful,” I managed. “It must be like living with gangrene, but worse because you can’t treat it.”

“Something like that, I suppose,” Qui-Gon replied. “You asked for me to tell you something useful,” he said, turning to face me before giving me a wry smile. “Next time, be more specific.”

“If that’s true, then why the hell couldn’t we smell Palpatine at a distance?” I wondered aloud, thinking of all the times I had been trapped in the Chancellor’s company. I hadn’t sensed – nor smelled – anything amiss.

“You already know the answer to that. Well, you have the skill,” he amended, when I gave him a confused look. “Force Illusion is a powerful talent. You learned that for yourself.” He grinned. “I still haven’t decided if I’m more proud of how you utilized the skill, or of how much of a fit it gave the Council.”

“You are still a very bad man,” I said, laughing. “Be nice, some of us are still on the Council.”

“I thought that the end of the war meant that you were off the Council?” he said, and I glared at him. He liked to throw out evidence of the fact that he had been watching me, and at times it seemed blasted unfair.

“Gods, Qui-Gon! Were you watching me shower, too?”

“Only when you left the door open,” he replied, and I growled and used the Force to fling sand at him. It fell through him, scattering across the rock, and Qui-Gon’s expression was pure taunt.

“I am still going to figure out how to hit you with a stick. Just watch,” I muttered, and he laughed, loud and brilliant, and I looked up in surprise at the sound. It was the kind of laugh that I had never heard him give voice to in life, and it was mesmerizing. I shook my head, trying to get my thoughts back under control. “As for the Council retirement bit, there is a problem. In the very strictest of senses, the war never ended. I’m stuck with the blasted job. At least,” I added thoughtfully. “I am no longer trapped in that damned chair.”

“You could resign anyway,” he said, his glow becoming more developed as the sun began to sink below the horizon.

“Good idea. The next time that you visit Yoda, tell him I quit.”

We sat in companionable silence, watching as the last bit of light disappeared in the east. That had been another thing to get used to – Tatooine was one of those planetary oddities in which the suns set in the east instead of the west. I stood up and made my way back to the house, and Qui-Gon followed, surprising me by staying corporal.

I glared at a womp rat that was sniffing with far too much interest at my front door, and it screeched at me and trundled off in disgust at having been thwarted. I stepped from swiftly cooling desert air into the soft, glowing warmth of what I was beginning to think of as home, slipping out of my robe and tossing it over my chair.

“Upon retrospect, I feel cheated, as I have no idea of how knowing that Sith stink is ever going to be useful,” I said, swearing under my breath as I realized I was almost out of tea. My tea plant down below wasn’t ready to have its leaves harvested again, either. Dammit. Anchorhead run tomorrow, then.

“It could very well be useful, given the correct situation,” Qui-Gon said, and I turned around to catch him perching on my chair. I glared at him, but he ignored me, and really, why was I even bothered? Because a ghost was sitting on the arm of my chair? Bah.

“But to be fair, I will tell you about something much more useful. It doesn’t have a name, but it’s a shielding technique that has been proven to be highly effective. You remember what Kashyyyk’s environment is like, don’t you?”

“Of course,” I said, thinking of the great forests, layers upon layers of trees. The sun could barely touch the surface of the world anymore, so thick were the layers of growth, each one home to different creatures, different plants. Different dangers. I glanced at my own shielding without thinking about it, and what I noticed stopped me dead in my tracks, halfway across the room with a glass of water in my hand.

There were traces in the shielding I had rebuilt on Dagobah that reminded me of the great twists of layered forests. My mouth dry, I asked, “So this shielding technique – does it have a name?”

From his perch on my chair, Qui-Gon shook his head. “No,” he said, his voice quiet, his eyes troubled. “You never named it.”

Fuck. Suddenly the water I held was not nearly strong enough, but I had stopped keeping alcohol in the house for fear that I would wake up from another nightmare and try to drown myself in it.

“You know exactly what happened to me,” I said, staring at him.

Qui-Gon ducked his head, looking away. “Of course I do,” he rumbled. “And no, I will not tell you.”

“Why not?” I demanded, getting frustrated. “It’s _my_ damned life! What bloody harm could it do?”

He shook his head, looking back at me even as he began to fade out. “Examine that place in your mind where the memories are lost, and you will know exactly why I can’t tell you.”

I stared at my now vacant chair, nonplussed. I think I had actually made Qui-Gon uncomfortable. Considering our circumstances, that felt strange, indeed. I decided to take his advice and, after tending the greenhouse for the night, I knelt in the middle of the room and meditated on the matter.

Memories weren’t just laid out from first to last, like a program, but if I concentrated, I could make them line up in order. It wasn’t easy, for human minds had a damned inconvenient filing system. We tended to misplace events, forget the trivial things, and sort in all in the wrong order because we liked some things more than others. Worse, it was the bad things that stayed vivid, while the memories we wanted to hold onto, the ones we treasured, faded with time. I was trying hard to keep that from happening, trying to hold onto the good with as much clarity as the bad, but it wasn’t easy.

When I had struggled with the blurred spots for so long that I my head wanted to ache, I had found what I was looking for. Or, at least, I thought I had. There was a great blank space for my missing three months, but that was just an illusion. It wasn’t blank, really. It was more like a…a…

I frowned, puzzled, because if I focused just right, it looked like a box - a box with two locks, and a whisper of warning. I gave the locks a mental prod, surprised by the response that came back to me – Jedi.

I opened my eyes to find that my head was pounding, and that a great deal of frustrated anger was welling up within me. “Why the hell couldn’t they just _tell_ me?” I yelled, but my house stayed empty.

I growled, getting up, wincing when half of my body protested, and paced the confines of my home, trying to make myself think. I couldn’t, necessarily, blame Yoda and Mace. There had been a few other Jedi around, I’d learned—Abella included, though she had died in the attack. It could have been the work of someone else who had become lost before or after the fight on Bail’s ship. I knew there had to be a reason. This wasn’t casual. None of us ever did something like this unless…

Well, they did say it was a hell of an injury.

I stopped in the middle of my home, because now I knew why Mace and Yoda had been hesitant. Without the Jedi who had created the block, I was never getting that time back. Hell, I wasn’t even certain if death would break those locks.

“What do I do now?” I whispered, but there was no one to answer me.

It was only later that night, when I was lying on the roof of my home and staring up at the stars, that I sensed his presence again. “Hi,” I said without moving, looking up at the point of light that was Alderaan’s sun.

 _I’m sorry,_ he said, and I thought I felt a soft touch upon my cheek.

“What for?” I asked, concerned by the regret I could feel.

_Sometimes, my Obi-Wan, I feel utterly helpless. I wish I could do more for you._

“You’re here,” I replied, blinking back sudden tears. “For now, Qui, that’s enough.”

 _Qui?_ he said, questioning amusement filtering through the Force.

“I—”

 _I like it,_ Qui-Gon said, and this time I knew I wasn’t hallucinating the Force-touch that felt like the trail of fingers through my windblown hair.

 

*          *          *          *

 

I glanced at the texted message on my comm, grinned, and deleted it. Owen, as terse and to the point as usual: _Storm coming. Take shelter._

I'd known about Tatooine's intense cycle of rainstorms, but living in the desert had left me with the niggling feeling that they were tall-tales told to travelers and new residents. Nothing this barren could produce something that torrential.

Then I'd begun to feel power build in the air, in the ground, and in the currents of the Force around me. Tonight I knew that it was going to rain, and rain hard.

I could hardly wait.

I stood in the doorway, patient, still, waiting for the suns to set. I activated the force-field to not lose heat from my home, keeping the door open as I was, and waited for rain.

The first drops fell as the last rays of light disappeared from the horizon. Loud, hissing as they struck sand that still held the heat of the day. I could taste the metallic hint of ozone. I could smell rain in the air, thick and heavy. With one long-lost exception, I had a new favorite smell.

I swallowed hard, anticipation seizing me. This was unlike any storm I'd ever experienced, and part of that was because of my newly strengthened connection to the Force. Never had I been so intensely aware of the rhythms and cycles of a planet. Coruscant had almost none to speak of, and I'd been focused on other things then, paying little attention to vague cycles of weather that were instigated more by machines than by nature.

I watched rain start to fall harder, the stars invisible as clouds whirled and formed in short order. The wind picked up, catching sand and trying to twist it around in the air, but then the rain defeated the sand, pounding it into the ground. I held out my hand, a sense almost like disbelief within me, until the cool water struck my skin, over and over, a staccato beat that left me with my breath caught in wonder and delight.

“The hell with this,” I said, and grinned as I stepped out into the downpour.

I was drenched in short order, rain running in rivulets down my face, drops bouncing with fierce repetition on my head, my nose, my shoulders, my arms. I could sense my Master's presence then, muted but full of some intense joy. I wondered if the joy was for what this experience was like in the Force…or if the joy was for me.

I laughed, held up my arms, and caught water that had the desert's harsh tang in my open mouth. It was ridiculous and simple, but this was the most fun I'd had in several years - standing in the pouring rain on a desert world in the back of beyond, grinning like a maniac.

Lightning was forming, I noticed, but that didn't compel me to move. In fact, I watched it, transfixed, as the clouds lit from within, grays and purples and blues that tore open the night sky and filled it with light. One bolt formed and struck the ground, close enough to me that I could feel the energy that spread out from it.

That earned me Qui-Gon's attention. _Are you trying to get yourself struck by lightning?_ he asked, sardonic lilt in his voice.

“No!” I yelled, my voice rising over the cacophony of wind and rain. “I'm trying to live!”

           

*          *          *          *

 

I turned around one morning and I suppose he didn’t expect it, for I wound up stepping straight through Qui-Gon’s blue, glowing form. For just one second, gods, I thought I could actually _smell_ him.

Then the moment was over, and I was whirling in surprise. Qui-Gon looked just as astonished as I probably did.

“The hell?” I sputtered, if only to try to stop myself from leaping right back through to recapture that beloved, long-lost scent.

“That was…different,” Qui-Gon said at last, looking for all the worlds like he really wanted to sit down and wasn’t sure if it was an option.

“I’ll say,” I retorted. “You still smell exactly the same.”

Qui-Gon smiled. “Are you trying to tell me that I need a bath?”

“What? Er, no. But I wasn’t aware that it was still an option for you,” I said, turning around and rummaging in my kitchen for tea. Tea and bugger-all, did I need to reconsider my stance on not keeping alcohol in the house. After a moment like that, tea with brandy sounded like a hint of paradise.

“You know, what you see of me now is not _all_ there is of me,” Qui-Gon replied, sounding miffed.

I peered around the little kitchen’s central support column to reply, since he hadn’t followed me in. “I can only see in one spectrum of light!” I reminded him, grinning at the sour look Qui-Gon gave me. He never had appreciated the science jibes.

“I mean that your focus determines your reality, a lesson I tried my best to hammer into your thick skull,” he retorted. “It’s only when I’m here that I’m…well, transient. There are other places, other layers.”

I found dried leaves and dropped them in the water when it boiled, closing the lid so that the liquid had no further opportunity to evaporate. I was going to brew the most gods-awful dark tea in the quadrant. “So you mean that perception is everything?”

There was a pleased note to his voice. “Close. There are multiple layers to this kind of existence, and I’ve only tested the waters of a few of them. There are some that are already beyond my reach, and others that I can only attempt by giving up this kind of contact, and I’m not quite ready to do that just yet.”

“Some that are already beyond reach?” I asked, my curiosity piqued. “How so?”

“Dying isn’t a…single step process,” he said, and I could hear him hesitating over his words. “It’s an almost infinite web comprised of choice and possibility. Each choice you make affects the possibilities that can open to you, and each possibility brings about a slew of new choices to make. There are usually others around to ask about them, but sometimes choosing your next path means that the old ones are closed to you. For example, there is a layer that exists just after death, and it is one that keeps the dead in closest contact with the layer of reality you’re dwelling in now. Most do not even recognize its existence, so easy is it to skip over. From that point it is very easy to communicate with the living, but you are cut off from communicating with anyone who might be further along the path.”

I thought about that for a moment, remembering the ghost that Knight Andulisa Rarke and I had once encountered on Arkania. That had been a nasty, spiteful thing. We could never see him, but he made his presence and anger very clear by hurling anything he could at us, even conjuring lightning to try to drive us away from what he thought he was protecting – the poor bastard’s long-dead body.

“Can you become trapped there?”

“No, but if you are thinking of ghosts in the traditional sense, I think it can become easy to believe you are trapped. It remains your choice to go, or to stay.”

“Now that…that feels like it might be useful one day,” I murmured, opening the sealed pot and looking with pleasure at deep, rich black tea. I poured a mug, sticking my face in the steam, and breathed out a happy sigh. If I couldn’t have had tea on this forsaken lump of sand called Tatooine, I would have long since staged a revolt.

“What do you mean?” he asked, his turn to be curious.

“Hell, Qui-Gon, I can barely manage the Second, the Third, and parts of the Seventh forms now, and I’ve only been living like this for two years. If I ever do train Luke, I’m probably going to wind up dead before it’s done. At least if I can stay close by, I can still help Yoda keep an eye on him.”

“You should probably be doing something about that sooner rather than later. Yoda’s blocks won’t hold up forever,” Qui-Gon replied. “It would be good for Luke to have his other uncle in his life.”

I closed my eyes for a second, my pleasure in having brewed tea vile enough for Garen to love disappearing in one moment. Luke. Force, I didn’t know what I was going to do about that.

“He has a family, Qui-Gon, and a good home. That is something that I can’t provide. Worse, if I keep seeing them, someone might get curious as to why I spend so much time there. For now, no one even knows that Owen is my brother. They’re safer that way.”

Owen and I, during a rare civil moment, had managed to discuss Luke’s future. Owen was willing to grant that the boy would need some sort of training eventually, even though he was also in favor of stomping on all hints of the boy’s Force potential in the hopes that he would lose it. I had vague thoughts that the traditional age of thirteen might be a good place to start.

“That’s far from ideal, you know.”

“I know you’ve been dropping the boy hints about your much larger world, Qui-Gon Jinn, even if you’ve tried to be subtle. Owen thinks _I’m_ doing it, especially after Luke found one of Owen’s missing tools with the Force.”

I didn’t think my ears would ever recover from the fierce riot act my brother had read me. He was not placated even when I’d tried to explain that some natural talents would not be stymied. I understood, even if Owen thought I didn’t; I sensed his underlying terror that Luke would be taken from him, turned into another monster like Vader. I was desperate for that not to happen, so desperate that I was worried about being a decent teacher to Luke.

“My apologies. I’ll try to refrain a bit. I just…don’t like the situation.”

“You just can’t stand not meddling, can you?” I asked, irritated. “Sometimes it’s better to leave well enough alone. His potential isn’t going anywhere, but pinging the Emperor’s radar would certainly bring things to a swift end.”

“Again, I’m sorry,” Qui-Gon said, and when I stepped back into the living room he did indeed look contrite, a rare expression for me to have witnessed.

I wandered past him, heading for my chair and a stack of pilfered data disks full of news, both Imperial and rogue sources. “You’re forgiven, Qui, don’t—don’t worry about it. Just…”

Dammit. There was that headache again. “Don’t you have anyone else to pester first thing in the morning?” I grumbled. Mixing metaphysics and Padawan custody battles was not the greatest way to start the day.

“No,” Qui-Gon said, and something in his voice caught my attention, made me look up. I found him giving me one of the most gentle smiles I had ever seen, his blue eyes full of warmth, and my heart decided to try to force its way out through my ribcage. “My Padawan needs me.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

I was exhausted by the time I flung myself onto my chair. I hadn’t even bothered to strip off my robe, but since I was chilled as well, better that it stayed on. Were the situation ideal, I would have stripped everything off and taken a hot shower, but a week of tracking a damned army of Tusken Raiders had left my water reserves sitting low. Hell, I was going to be lucky to still have my vaporators if the Jawas had noticed my absence.

I managed to wiggle my feet out of my boots without much effort and slumped back down again. Damn, but caff actually sounded good right now, and I hated the stuff. Also, a decent bar that was closer than a full day’s ride away would be nice. Right then, I was certain that I could drain one dry.

Qui-Gon appeared sometime after I started swearing. He hadn’t been around for most of the week. I’m not sure how long it took me to find the limits of my vocabulary, but he just listened to me rant, occasionally raising an eyebrow at some of the fouler phrases.

When I wound down, still seething, he finally spoke. “I take it I missed something?”

“It never fucking ends, does it? Things can’t stay simple. Why the _fuck_ can’t things be simple?”

“You already know the universe doesn’t work that way,” Qui-Gon said gently.

“Yes, I do know that.” I scratched at the stubble on my face, then my beard, my fingernails filling with tiny grains of sand. Force’s sake, I had sand _everywhere._

“While you were off doing whatever it is you lot do when you’re not pestering us mortals, someone gathered up several of the Tusken tribes and tried to start a damned war. I was tracking them as they slaughtered their way across several settlements, realized where they were headed and was there to greet them before they could do the same thing to my brother’s place.”

I closed my eyes, wanting to swear, wanting a stiff drink, wanting to be off this damned rock and knowing that two of those options were not currently available. One of them I wouldn’t take even if it was offered to me. I couldn’t.

“One man was leading them. A man with a lightsaber.” I opened my eyes and looked up at Qui-Gon, and when I spoke my voice was an angry growl. “It was A’Sharad. A’Sharad Hett.” He was a fellow Jedi, son of a Jedi Master, and once, a friend to Anakin Skywalker. “Gods all, it never fucking _ends!_ ”

“What happened?” Qui-Gon asked, his calm voice a sharp contrast to my current temper.

“A’Sharad wouldn’t be dissuaded. He felt that it was his duty to kill the settlers that had encroached on Tusken lands, wasn’t even noticing anymore whether the property in question belonged to them or not. I had to fight him.” I wished I could forget the betrayed look on his face when I’d used the tip of my lightsaber to remove his helmet, destroying his authority over the watching Tuskens. “I won. They left him. He begged me to kill him.”

“Did you?”

“Of course not!” I snapped. “Though it may have been kinder if I had! I banished him from this place, made him swear upon his father that he would leave and never return. But he didn’t need to be sent away, he needed _help, q_ nd I’m in no position to even begin to provide it!”

“You only did what was necessary,” Qui-Gon said, trying to console me. It was too bad that I was in no mood to be placated.

“That doesn’t ever mean I have to be happy about it!” I yelled back. Then a sharp, lancing pain struck my chest. I gasped, clutching my chest with both hands, and tried to figure out what the hell I’d done to myself now.

“Breathe,” I heard, and felt a wash of cool energy at my shoulder. “Just keep breathing, and it will pass.”

I did my best to obey, breathing through pain that made my left arm throb, made it feel like I wasn’t getting enough oxygen.

 _Fuck, so this is what a heart attack feels like,_ I thought.

“Not a heart attack,” I heard Qui-Gon say, his voice soft, soothing. “But it is your body warning you of what could happen, if you aren’t cautious.”

I sighed as the pain faded back, became a terrible throbbing in the muscles of my arm and chest. If I had thought I was exhausted before, I was wrong. Now I was so tired that I was shaking, couldn’t even manage words. I got up, almost falling into the wall as I made my way to my bed. I saw Qui-Gon follow me, and noticed his frustrated expression right before I fell into bed, asleep almost before I touched the blankets.

When I awoke it was almost dark, and the heat was stifling. I struggled out of bed, so parched I didn’t even need to visit the ’fresher after so many long hours in bed. I went to the tap and spent the next hour trying to rehydrate without making myself sick in the process. When I felt reasonably better, I changed clothes, then pulled my robe back on and went outside. It was cool, much better than the icy chill that usually pervaded the desert night. This was what passed for high summer on Tatooine, and I’d long since discovered that if I didn’t wander too far from home, I could spend the nights outside and remain unbothered by nocturnal creatures. I climbed up onto the roof to lie down on cool stone. Despite the wrenching pain I was in, so bad that it was making it difficult to even think, I was asleep again in moments.

When I opened my eyes later, it was full dark and the stars were shining overhead. I drifted in and out of consciousness, aware when Qui-Gon’s presence came to join me, taking comfort in it and not caring at that moment who knew it.

“I dreamt about you once,” I said after a time. I apparently needed to invest in a gag for my mouth. Now that I’d muttered the words, I wasn’t drifting any more. I was _very_ awake.

“Oh?” Qui-Gon asked, and the form that I’d sensed beside me came into focus, his pale blue glow lighting the air with soft warmth. “Want to tell me about it?”

“I…was on Naboo, years ago. I’d gone down into the melting pit.”

“Gods, why would you want to go back there?” he asked, and could almost sense his revulsion. I suppose Qui-Gon didn’t like the place, either. It held bad memories – for both of us.

“I missed you,” I said quietly, tracking the lights that made up the systems of the Perlemian Trade Route as I spoke. “I…gods, I was damned near suicidal at that point, Qui. I might have been good at being a general, but after I spent a month starving and Force-blind because of Ventress, I was…not pleased with the universe.” I hesitated over the words, slowly telling him of the dream I’d had of him appearing in my room, much like he was now. I didn’t mention the last part, where I had spoken of my love. I did tell him that Padmé had told me to cherish the dream, regardless of whether or not it had actually happened. I had; I still cherished it, held it close to my heart.

“I don’t remember that,” Qui-Gon said, and my heart clenched despite my long ago acceptance of Padmé’s advice. “But that might not mean anything,” he continued, and I turned my head to look at him.

“How so? I would think you would still know what you have and haven’t done,” I said, managing a half-hearted smile.

“True,” Qui-Gon acknowledged, looking up. I could see the stars reflected in his eyes. Dreams were nice, yes, but _that_ was an image that would stay with me. Force, even in this form, he was beautiful.

“Time doesn’t exactly move the same way for me that it does for you. As odd as it sounds, it could very well be something I haven’t done yet.”

I frowned. “Isn’t that something of a paradox – me telling you about it, hence you have to do it or things break down?”

Qui-Gon laughed. “If the universe was really so fragile, the entire place would be falling down around our ears with every second that passes. Don’t worry, Obi-Wan. I will probably get to it eventually.”

“That would be nice,” I said, resting my cheek on cool stone. “It would be good to know that you’d saved my life.”

He glanced over at me. “I thought I was doing something rather like that now.”

I swallowed hard. “I thought we were just sleeping on my roof because it was too blasted hot inside,” I said, keeping my voice mild.

“Is that what it is?” Qui-Gon murmured, looking back up at the stars, a hint of a smile on his face.

 

*          *          *          *

 

I sprang up in the dark and was running before I was even truly awake. I don’t know where the hell I thought I was going, but my blind panic was stopped cold by the center support post in the living room.

I lurched back and stumbled before falling, landing on my back hard enough to drive the air from my lungs. I drew in another shaky breath, panic forgotten in the wake of the pain now coming from my face. I groaned and touched my head, and saw sparks dance across my vision.

“Aw, fuck,” I mumbled, and now I could feel warm moisture gathering in the bristle above my lip. I grimaced and touched my nose, and that was worse –my vision went white, and I whimpered.

What the hell was I going to have to do, build restraints for my bed?

When I sensed Qui-Gon’s presence, some hours later, it didn’t take him more than a second to appear. He stared at me in shock. “I know my sense of time is rotten, but I know I wasn’t gone that long!” he exclaimed, taking in my bruised face and swollen nose. “What the hell happened?”

“Tried mating with a Bantha. Didn’t work too well,” I said, moving the ice pack (that stayed cold exactly five minutes in this damned environment) into a new position on my head. “Could you not raise your voice, please? I believe I have a concussion.”

“I’m surprised you’re actually conscious,” Qui-Gon replied, and this time his voice was a soothing rumble. He reached out with a transparent blue hand, his fingers just brushing my nose. I felt nothing more than a tingle, but that was fantastic compared to the throbbing I’d been enduring for hours. “Nightmares again?”

I nodded and regretted it, since the room swam with the motion. I didn’t want to throw up with my nose still recovering from being reset. I’d almost passed out from shoving bone back into alignment as it was.

“You need to consider adding restraints to the bed.”

“Already had that thought. Dismissed it as too kinky.” I dropped the ice pack down onto the table, trying for another sip of water. This time my stomach didn’t try to stage a revolt, which was nice. “I guess it’s official, now. Three cycles a year, two weeks per cycle, and I never remember a damned thing.” _Stupid block._

“You know, that actually makes no sense whatsoever,” Qui-Gon said. I gave him a skeptical look. “The cycle, I mean. The two weeks I could understand, but three times a year? There’s no reason for that.”

“Thanks,” I drawled. “It’s nice to know that my brain doesn’t understand how it’s supposed to work.”

We kept making jokes while the fierce throbbing in my skull calmed, and after meditating while lying on my back outside as the suns began to rise for the day, I felt competent enough to spend an hour in a healing trance, dealing with the concussion. I really was getting better at healing; when I was done my face was still sensitive to the touch, but otherwise all of the pain was gone. I wished I could dismiss my chronic pain as easily, but the Force made it bearable. I was content with that.

I had breakfast, ready to begin work on the farm despite my unusual start to the day. I went downstairs and was greeted by the gentle whispers of growing things. I walked along the rows of plants, making sure the nutrient feed lines and watering timers were all functioning properly. If things continued to go well, I would have another harvest in a month. I didn’t need to check the vaporators until midday, so I had time to spend on other projects – like carving rocks.

Later, my lightsaber dialed down to its lowest setting, I carefully shaved off another layer of the stone I’d found. It wasn’t lightsaber quality, but it was a nice gemstone. Tatooine Emerald was the unofficial name it went by, and they were rare -- unless you ventured out into the Wastes. Sometimes I was very fond of my present location, especially when these were worth quite a bit of money to the right people.

Qui-Gon was watching me, sitting against the far wall. Well, sitting wasn’t quite the right word, but the posture was correct for it, anyway. He tilted his head as I wiped sweat from my forehead and performed another delicate pass of the blade. “You know, I think there are several lines in the Code about doing menial labor with a lightsaber.”

I snorted, glancing at the dark green stone with a critical eye. One flaw left. If I could get rid of that, I had over six hundred credits to barter for with one little stone. Once I found a buyer, I could upgrade that damned cistern. “Fuck the Code.”

“I would prefer not to,” Qui-Gon replied serenely. “Paper cuts.”

I lifted my lightsaber away from the stone before I could chop the damned thing in half, laughing and shaking my head. “Embarrassing explanations about why a data reader doesn’t work anymore.”

He raised an eyebrow. “If you have managed to fit into one of those, you have a far greater problem than just explaining away a sullied reader.”

“Or a far smaller problem,” I jibed, and Qui-Gon narrowed his eyes at me, fighting a smile. “Though really, I’m surprised I still _have_ all of my plumbing,” I continued, amused. “I don’t even have most of my teeth.”

He gave me a curious glance. “I hadn’t realized.”

I shrugged. “Implants,” I said, tapping my upper front teeth with my fingernails. “From all of the times I’ve been kicked in the face. You would think I’d have learned to keep my mouth shut.”

“I’m so very glad you didn’t. Spirit is usually more interesting than silence,” Qui-Gon said, and for some damned reason that left me with a warm feeling in my heart.

“You seem to have an interesting new opinion about the confines of the Jedi Code.”

“I realized a long time ago that life, expediency, and the Code did not get along, and thereafter didn’t have much use for it. Good for—” I hesitated, for I still hated to speak of Anakin. “Good for torturing Padawans with, but not much else. If I knew then what I have experienced now, I daresay I would have been helping you make every single Council member regret ever accepting a chair.” I was smiling, I realized, taking a sort of melancholy pleasure in the imagery my words provoked.

“That would have been enjoyable. We could have taken up a count.”

“What, on how many members would have resigned because of us, or of how many migraines we would have given to Mace?”

Qui-Gon considered for a moment. “Both.”

I stared down at the stone, made the last cut and then shut off my lightsaber, my mood suddenly almost as dark as it had been when my day had started. “I miss them,” I said, glancing at Qui-Gon. He stared back at me, and I knew both of us were remembering the same thing. I had been in the midst of patching a crack in the cistern a few days ago when we had sensed Mace Windu pass into the Force.

I fell silent, placing the stone aside so that I could get ready to go collect the day’s water harvest. He faded out again, as he usually did when we weren’t conversing directly. I had begun to realize a few months ago that it took him a certain amount of concentration and energy to maintain a form that I could see. His presence, however, he didn’t seem to have any trouble keeping around. (We had an unspoken agreement that my ’fresher was _off limits_.)

Right then I knew my mood was foul. If I was smart, I would have asked him to leave me be for a few hours – but I didn’t want to be alone, either.

Qui-Gon, perhaps sensing my mixed feelings on the matter, stayed unobtrusive as I hiked from one vaporator to the next, collecting my water. I was fighting with my emotions, fighting the grief that wanted to consume me, the anger that sometimes felt raw enough to burn. Mace’s death had broken some part of me that had still been willing to hope. He was one of the best of us, strong in the Force, fierce and cunning when the situation called for it.

I would have been lying if I had said I didn’t blame myself. I knew Vader had killed him, and Vader had been _my_ responsibility.

I started speaking without really thinking about it. “They’re not all nightmares,” I said, dropping back my hood as I hiked through one of the shallow canyons, a momentary respite from the suns. “There is one where I’ve fallen into the spring on Utapau. But it’s different, this time. I never hear Garen, and it takes me a moment, as I feel everyone dying, to realize that Cody didn’t miss.”

I felt another flash of anger. I had served with Cody for years, and when the Order came, he never hesitated over the decision to kill me. “I realize I’m dying…and it’s a relief. I have time to think: ‘I’ll never have to see what Anakin becomes. I’ll never have to see Vader kneeling before his Emperor.’ When I wake up, I feel so…so deceived. I feel cheated.”

_Do you want to die?_

“Sometimes.” I winced as I exited the canyon and the glare of the twin suns struck my eyes once more. “It seems like it would be easier. But I know better.”

 _I’m sorry_ , Qui-Gon said, his mental voice like a sigh. _I promise you, things will get better. Time may not bring healing, but it brings perspective, and sometimes that is enough._

I shook my head. “Don’t do that. I don’t want there to be any promises between us.”

 _Why not?_ Qui-Gon asked, his puzzlement and concern coming to me through the Force.

“Because…you…” I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to say the words, now that I’d blundered onto the damned subject. “You and promises do not sit well with each other. The last promise you gave me, you broke, and I would rather not go through that pain again.”

He was hurt by my words and I could feel it, but what was I to do? I had told him nothing less than the truth. I flashed back on Anakin, days before the galaxy had gone to hell, laughing and telling me he’d protect me from that scary son of a bitch. Yes, I had definitely had enough of false pledges.

“That’s not fair,” Qui-Gon whispered, his voice audible again as I drained the water from the next vaporator.

“Nor was it fair to me!” I snapped back, shoving the retainer for the vaporator back into place and sealing the door with far more force than necessary. “And then there was that damned fight—what the hell were you thinking, going after that damned Sith alone?”

I gritted my teeth and tried to rein in my anger, but I had been holding it within me for a long time, and it wasn’t going to go without a fight. This was not a conversation I had ever wanted to have with Qui-Gon while I was upset, and here I had gone and broached the subject while furious.

He surprised me by appearing in front of me, stilling my walk to the next vaporator. “Would it help if you were to hear out my reason for doing so?”

“Would it make a difference?” I countered, walking forward again. He drifted along with me, and we made our way to the next vaporator in silence. Qui-Gon watched as I gave the vaporator a fierce kick to knock loose the control panel. Damned thing always jammed.

“It makes a difference to you,” he said at last, and I paused in the midst of what I was doing to look up at him.

“There is much that is easy to forgive, Qui-Gon. Other things are harder. Those last few days, alone in my own head, agonizing over the fact that you had shut me out again, after promising…” I ran my hands through my hair and stifled a sigh. There was too much within me that still wanted to rail at the stars for the unfairness of what once was. “Tell me.”

“I was afraid,” he said.

Well. That was new. I emptied the water the vaporator had collected into my container and resealed it before the desert heat could steal the liquid away. “Afraid of what? Afraid of being wrong?”

“I was not wrong.” Qui-Gon was scowling. “It…gods, I could have handled that entire situation better. After that disaster, I’m wondering how anyone could have ever thought I was a good diplomat.”

I bit down on my lip, hard, fighting the grin that wanted to surface despite my foul mood. “You were very tall, very formidable, and good at glowering at people. I’m sure that was a big part of your credentials.”

“You’re not helping,” Qui-Gon muttered. I was surprised to realize he was having as much difficulty with this conversation as I was. I picked the canister’s strap back up and laid it over my shoulder as I got to my feet.

“I handled Anakin’s case badly, but I was exhausted and worried, and more than a bit distracted. I had just realized that…”

“That what?” I repeated, and realized he was no longer drifting along beside me. I turned around to find him staring at me, a horrible look of guilt in his eyes. “Gods, Qui— _what?”_

“Do you—do you remember the first vision you ever had, when you met Kimal?”

I frowned and thought back, and the first thing I remembered was that damned Virrax crystal. After losing the crystal –lightsaber included— to the melting pit, I had never had another Virrax.

“Sort of,” I murmured, trying to call the actual vision back. It wasn’t easy to remember what had amounted to no more than a few seconds, especially when it had been over twenty years ago. Wait – there it was. Black. Black and red. Flashes of…of…

I growled when I couldn’t recall the rest, but now that I was mindful of it, I remembered the other visions that had come to me in bits of tangled dreaming. Black and red, shot through with blue and green.

That one summer the dreams had been so frequent and so abysmal that I had finally gone to Yoda to talk through it, trying to get my Sight under control. It had worked, up to a point, and after a few weeks my dreams had gone on to bigger and better things – like _everyone_ dying. Then Qui-Gon had died, and with my hands tied up in Anakin’s training, I had forgotten about it all.

Those eyes, though. I knew them now. Piercing yellow, baleful. Full of hate. Full of Darkness. “No,” I whispered, opening my eyes. “No.” _Gods no, please no_. “Please tell me you didn’t.”

Qui-Gon’s distress was a near-palpable thing, matching the anguish in his eyes. “We thought you knew, Yoda and I. After the Sith attacked on Tatooine, it just…the Force was screaming: ‘This. _This_!’ to me, one of the only times in my life I have ever known anything so strongly. I remembered everything you had ever said about what you once Saw.”

He kept speaking, and just this once, just one time, I wanted him to stop, to not do this. “You were the one always thinking about the future, and yet here I was, absorbed by it in your place. It was on Naboo that I realized…for whatever reason, you didn’t know. I—I couldn’t—after you had saved my life so many times, I couldn’t bear to just—”

“No,” I breathed out the word. _Just deny it. Just don’t tell me—_

“I couldn’t watch you die.”

There was a roaring in my ears, but it was a distant, unimportant thing. For a long, stark moment, I just stared at him, feeling the wind blow grains of sand across my hands, felt the blazing heat of the suns burn my face. My jaw was clenched so tightly that it hurt, and without a word I spun around and stalked back towards my home.

Fuck the last vaporator. It wasn’t going to flood out waiting another day, not in this heat.

I knew he was following me, concerned and probably confused by my reaction. It was all I knew to do. I couldn’t deal with this. I didn’t want to deal with this.

By the time I made it back into the relative cool of my home, my fury might as well have been a thundercloud around me. I just kept walking back and forth, trying to ground it out, trying to stomp it back down. I knew he had followed me inside, knew that he was standing nearby, but I refused to look at him. If I could just manage to bury this again—

“Obi-Wan?”

I whirled, for he had just made the mistake of giving all of my rage a focus. “HOW THE FUCK COULD YOU DO THAT TO ME?” I shouted, my words echoing off the walls.

It was like something snapped, both in my head and in the Force, and I saw Qui-Gon wince when every ceramic object in my house shattered. I barely noticed; I was advancing on Qui-Gon. I couldn’t recall ever having been more furious.

“How DARE you! You had no RIGHT to have made that decision for me!”

He gave me a bewildered look, halting his steps. “What?”

“It was MY LIFE. MINE! If you had stopped being such an inscrutable bastard for just _one moment_ , if you had just TALKED to me! Perhaps _none_ of this would have ever happened!”

In the space of one breath my focus had shifted from myself to Anakin. “You were his hero! No matter what, he would have listened to you!” _Anakin wouldn’t be DEAD!_

“No.” Qui-Gon was shaking his head. “Neither of us would have been able to reach him, not after Palpatine revealed himself.”

“You can’t KNOW that!” I yelled back. In retrospect, it was a stupid thing to say, but my temper and my brain don’t necessarily communicate very well.

“Of course I can!” Qui-Gon snapped, raising his voice at last. Strange how it was enough to get my attention, and I slammed my mouth shut, my teeth cracking together so hard I took a moment to make sure I hadn’t just shattered something.

“Of course I can,” he said again, softer this time. “I told you once that I could see what was happening. Anakin didn’t just decide to go and slaughter thousands. Palpatine broke the Lifebond that Anakin shared with Padmé. That was the dam that broke, that allowed Vader to form.”

I stared at him, stunned. “That’s not possible.” That kind of bond was a permanent thing, part of each being’s psyche, part of the Force. The power to break it should have been only within Padmé or Anakin—not Sidious. “How the _fuck_ is that possible?”

“I don’t know,” Qui-Gon admitted, and I found myself biting my lower lip in frustration. “Palpatine seems to have a knack for being able to corrupt all things, even the incorruptible.”

“Gods.” I ran my hands through my hair. “Fuck-all, Qui-Gon. It was—dammit, you should have _told_ me. You all but committed suicide!”

“I have had the time to regret that decision,” Qui-Gon whispered, and like a switch had been thrown, my anger was gone.

I sank to my knees, my arms over my head, resting my forehead on the floor. “Please,” I said, my voice thick. “Please, just leave me be.”

“Ben.” He whispered the name he had never called me before. The pain I could hear in his voice broke any chance of control I had left.

I lifted my head and looked at him, tears streaming down my face. “Please,” I begged. “Just…please give me time to deal with this. I can’t—I can’t bear this right now. Please leave me alone.”

He stared back, his eyes luminous and full of grief. Then he nodded. _I will be back,_ Qui-Gon whispered as he vanished.

When the entirety of his presence was gone, I sank back down to the floor, seized by horrible, tearing sobs. He had done me no favors by opening these floodgates, for now I couldn’t stop screaming out the agony that years alone had brought me. I couldn’t hold back my despair, wrought by the dark vengeance of the Sith upon the Jedi.

I was just relieved that there was no one to witness it but me.

 

*          *          *          *

 

Qui-Gon did return, as he had said he would, sometime before dawn. I was lying on the floor, feeling warm stone beneath my cheek, staring idly at broken chunks of ceramic and wondering if I had it within me to clean up the mess. “Do you remember that drug trade on Chandrila we looked into?”

I saw blue, and then Qui-Gon was on his knees before me, gazing down at me with a concerned smile. “Wasn’t that the one started by those bored young aristocrats?”

I managed a nod. “That’s the one, and you’re being kind. Spoiled bastards, that lot. They weren’t into spice or anything truly illegal. They were trading fucking pharmaceuticals. Sedatives, mood adjusters, pain killers.”

I stared up at him, feeling a dull ache in the back of my skull, offset by a deep sense of false tranquility. The heavy yet weightless sense to my limbs was distracting the hell out of me.

“I really, _really_ don’t get what all of the fuss was about.”

Qui-Gon closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose, the gesture heartbreakingly familiar. “Obi-Wan,” he said, pinning me with a stern glare. “How many did you take?”

I thought about it, for the number had been sort of abstract. “Five…six maybe? I wasn’t really counting. Though don’t be concerned. I’m going right back to alcohol. When I can move.”

He let loose a relieved sigh and shook his head, starting to smile. “Learned your lesson, have you?”

“Qui, I have been lying on this damned floor all fucking _night_ ,” I groused, and he started to chuckle, hiding the expression behind one hand. “Oh, blast it all, go ahead and laugh,” I said, and he did so, and after a moment I started to laugh, too.

Once I could move without slumping back down into half-zombified oblivion, I started gathering up the pieces of everything that I had broken. I shook my head as I worked – I was lucky I hadn’t destroyed the crystals in my lightsaber with that little fit of temper. It took me all of that day, because I didn’t dare discard everything. Not yet. I was stuck performing jigsaw puzzle work, making sure I had every single piece matched with its mates. If I’d had to gather more than two plates, two bowls, and two mugs, I would have been crawling around on my floor for a solid week trying to find all of the pieces.

After a horrible night’s sleep, dealing with the worst damned hangover I had ever had, I was back in the kitchen. I stared at my broken tea mug, holding a piece of it in each hand. In front of me on the table, I still had three more.

I was a fucking _idiot_.

I sighed, tossing the pieces down to join the others and then let my head thud down onto the tabletop. I couldn’t afford to replace anything I had broken, which was bad, because I had just broken everything ceramic in the blasted house. I was going to be eating and drinking out of my hands unless I figured out a solution to this little disaster.

Qui-Gon was still distant, though I sensed he had not gone far. I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t exactly regret what I had said, but damn, I could have handled that better.

Once, years ago, I’d managed to shatter our entire collection of mugs with the Force during a pubescent fit of temper. What had bewildered me at the time, ready to cry in misery as I was, had been Qui-Gon’s reaction. He had picked up the handle of his tea mug, the bits of which were still streaming spilled tea…and he’d laughed. He had howled with laughter, half bent over the table, while I had stared at him and wondered if my Master had lost his mind. Either a sense of self-preservation kicked in, or perhaps I’d decided that crying was really not the best option, but it wasn’t long before we were both laughing, sitting on the floor with our leggings soaking up tea.

When we could both speak without dissolving into useless giggles, Qui-Gon told me that during his apprenticeship, he had once done the same thing _. “Thank the Force it happened in Yoda’s quarters and not my own, for I don’t think Dooku would have been nearly so magnanimous as Yoda was when I destroyed that teapot,”_ he’d said, and I had nodded my agreement.  

Funny; I couldn’t even remember what we’d been arguing about right before that happened. Thirty years meant that I’d had a long time to forget inconsequential things. Damn, but I didn’t think of it as inconsequential any longer. None of it was. Every moment of it was worth saving, worth holding onto.

I opened my eyes again and lifted my head, resting my chin on the table as I stared at my broken mug. I knew how to make one. I knew every step of the process in intimate detail, since I had long ago mastered the clay wheel. Well, perhaps mastered was not the correct term, but I had reached the point where I could turn out items that were worth keeping and firing on almost every throw. I didn’t have that option here. The equipment would have been easy, but the clay? Not on this rock.

I touched the broken edge, feeling hard white stone that had once been earth, and without really thinking about it I sank into the Force. I brushed my fingers back and forth along the edge, feeling each crack, each crevice, even the tiny bumps that had been individual grains of soil, formed and heated until the atoms had bonded together, recreating a new shape from the old.

I sat straight up, staring down at the table. Without letting myself think about what I was doing, I picked up the primary two pieces, fitting them together until the line of the break was almost invisible. I stared at it, turning it around in the light. The line was solid – there were no tiny holes that spoke of missing shards. I took a deep breath and let it out, then touched the fault line with the Force. There were points here that had been taught to bond with each other, and they remembered it. If I could convince them to bond again along those same lines…

The mug grew warm in my hands as I worked, and I lost all sense of time as I concentrated on fitting two halves together. Sometime later I let out a shaky breath, holding on to just one of the pieces. The second piece stayed where it was – and there was no line, not even a mar in the glaze. I turned it around in my hands, inspecting what I had done, and after a moment, I sat the semi-repaired mug down on the table, got up, and walked outside.

The suns were setting, which meant I had just spent half of the day teaching myself this new thing. I collapsed to my knees and realized I was soaked in sweat. Even my hair was dripping. Most of it had been nerves. I had been almost frightened by the notion of what I had just done, but now that it was over…

“Fuck,” I managed, and laughed when the word echoed back to me in the still air.

I went back inside and poked at my mug with one finger, feeling myself grin. _Incredible._ Now I just had to learn to do it without using up an entire day. Then I looked at the remaining pieces, and realized that if I wanted tea in the morning, I had a hell of a lot of work to do.

 

*          *          *          *

 

“Obi-Wan?” There was a faint sense of prodding on my shoulder, and I opened eyes that felt glued shut.

“Ugh,” I managed, trying to shift in my chair. Every nerve in my body lit up like fire. “FUCK!” I yelled, my voice dropping into a whimper as I realized exactly how angry my body was with me.

“I knew I should have come back earlier. You know you can’t sleep like that anymore and remain sane afterwards,” Qui-Gon teased me, his voice gentle, and I felt the faint hint of fingers running through my hair.

“Was busy,” I said, breathing through the pain, counting backwards in old High Aurebesh until I could draw upon the Force to ease stiff muscles and angry joints. After a moment I sat up, stretching and trying not to wince.

Qui-Gon was physically present, or close enough to it, studying the repaired mug with a critical eye. “Not bad,” he said at last.

I glowered at him. “You’re only saying that because you know I won’t risk breaking it again to throw it at you.”

He offered me a playful smile, and I muttered dire things under my breath as I forced myself to my feet. Time to make some more vile tea and see if my repairs held.

He stayed close to me most of that day, as I tried to make up for missing almost two days of work. The last vaporator was not happy with missing out on my visit, and communicated this to me by throwing sparks when I tried to drain the reservoir.

I swore under my breath, removing the offending component to take home with me. I only had so many replacement parts, and I couldn’t afford to be short even one vaporator. I liked my one shower per month allowance, and wasn’t willing to give it up.

It was late when I finished repairing the faulting power supply lines. My fingers were covered in grease, and I suspected from Qui-Gon’s amused smile that I had probably forgotten and ran my hands through my hair. “Standing straight up, is it?”

“Not quite,” he said, eyeing my hair. “Interesting colors now, though.”

“Beats white,” I murmured, wiping my hands on a discolored rag. My hair had been half-white when I had seen Garen. Now I only had a few threads of copper blond here and there to remind me of what had once been.

Qui-Gon was still there when I emerged from the ’fresher later, damp from the shower I’d had to take anyway when the sonics couldn’t budge the grease. “You’re not doing too well at hiding those guilty looks of late,” I commented, giving him a stern glare of my own.

He ducked his head, smiling. “I am…trying to be more forthcoming.” He hesitated, and that concerned me. We’d had enough life-altering conversations of late. “I am leaving tonight, for a month’s time.”

 _A month?_ Some part of me quavered at the thought. “Why?”

“There is something I wanted to look into, but it is in a place I cannot go while I am anchored to you,” he said.

I frowned, for that was something he had never mentioned before. “Anchored to me? What do you mean?”

Qui-Gon looked sheepish. “This is what I mean about trying to be more forthcoming. The entire reason I have been able to stay as close to you as I have is because I’m tied to you—just not in any way that you would be able to sense, or you would have known of my presence a long time ago. I don’t even have that kind of connection with Yoda, and it gets harder to find him each time because of that lack. To go where I need to go, I need to sever that tie temporarily.”

I stared at him, my serenity vanishing in a heartbeat. Gone. For a month. We had been apart for a week, at most, since I had learned how to see him.

“You…you will come back?” I asked, feeling pathetic and not caring a damned bit. Even having him in my life this way was better than not at all.

He smiled. “I will come back. I will do you the kindness of not promising it will be exactly a month from now.” I managed to smile in response – his skewed sense of time was becoming a joke between us. “But…I do promise to return to you,” he said, gazing at me.

I swallowed hard. He was asking me to accept his word, believe in him as I once had with all of the strength in which I’d loved him. “You’d better,” I whispered. “Because if you don’t, I will hunt you down when I die and do my level best to kick your ass.”

Qui-Gon nodded, and I closed my eyes as I felt that gentle, invisible touch stroke my temple. “I will always find you,” he said. In the next moment he was gone. I stared at the place where he had been, finding no trace of him in the Force. Chilled, I went to my bed and lay down.

I didn’t sleep again for days.

           

*          *          *          *

 

It was only later, as the days kept passing, and life kept moving on, that I realized how alone I truly was. Qui-Gon’s presence in my life had been a blessing to me, one that, once again, I hadn’t appreciated until it was missing. My comfort was in knowing that he would be back.

Some days, though, it still didn’t keep me from feeling abandoned. I could reach out with the Force and feel no sentient minds even remotely nearby, and it just added to my echoing sense of isolation. I kept taking longer walks, moving farther and farther out from my home, teaching myself the lay of my lands as another means to distract myself from the fact that I had no one to talk to but myself. I was trying hard not to fall into that habit, or else I feared the rumors of my insanity might become less rumor and more truth.

In the evenings I would sit up on the roof of my home and watch the stars come out, naming the distant systems, guessing the names of others that were unfamiliar. The sky was vast, full of worlds that I had known, and still many more that I had not.

I caught myself wondering if Vader was making good on Anakin’s old promise to see them all, and for a solid week I could not bear to look at them, hiding indoors once the sun had set.

After my own house began to feel like a prison cell, I started meditating outdoors in the evening, kneeling in the cooling sand. I missed the peace of the Temple, missed my old hiding places, half-dreaming of a time when hiding meant that there was still the background hum of thousands of Jedi around, and none of us were ever truly alone.

The Star Map room had been one of my favorite places, though to this day I still wasn’t sure why. I had just always found comfort in the projected stars and systems brought to life, and unless the need was dire, those that had found me sitting in the hologram were usually content to let me be. Or, to my amusement, they had used the map without acknowledging that there was a copper-haired human hiding in it, conceivably blocking their view of Hoth and Hadria.

I opened my eyes, still close to a meditative state, and my breath caught in surprise.

The air around me was filled with tiny crystals of sand, all of them arranged in an exact replica of the holographic Star Map. A second later the sand was falling to the ground like gentle rain, the image gone. I stared around me in amazement, realizing what I had done. Force, I had never had fine control like that before in my life!

I thought about it, and tried to capture that same sense of peace that I held when I communed with the Force of late, touching the grains of sand once more. Finding the individual grains was harder than I expected, but after some hours of effort I managed it again, though not on the same scale. Sweat running down my forehead despite the now cool night air, I smiled with delight. In front of me I had replicated a single system – Corellia. The light from two of Tatooine’s moons reflected off of the quartz grains, turning my little floating sand sculpture into quiet starlight.

 

*          *          *          *

 

A month came and went, and he didn’t return. At first I was angry, and then I found myself fretting, wondering what kind of trouble he could get into despite already being dead. I had a feeling that once he had unanchored himself from me, his sense of time had gone straight to hell. A second month passed, and then a third, and at last I shrugged and decided that if I kept worrying about my erstwhile Master, I was going to lose my damned mind. I knew he would be back – I just didn’t know when.

In the meantime, I was outside every day, despite the blazing heat of the two suns of Tatooine. The piece of flimsiplast I had hidden in my home said I owned vast tracts of the desert around me, and it was useful to at least know what it contained. According to my internal map, I had walked over half of the property. Once my sense of how the planet's moisture cycles worked had set in, I moved the old vaporators to more ideal locations. The place was more productive now than it had possibly ever been, and I used the extra water to trade for things I couldn't make on my own. The small, air-tight container I'd acquired a few months ago, filled with bacta gel, was one of the richest treasures in my possession.

I was so lost in considering my next excursion to Anchorhead, with the possibility of bumming a ride to Mos Eisley, that I didn't notice the Tusken Raider until he bellowed at me. I jumped back, my hand trying to go to a lightsaber on my belt that wasn't there. I cursed; I'd left it at home, allowing the power cell to recharge after a long session of the blade meditation.

The Tusken was standing in the middle of the path, gadaffi staff in hand, a rifle slung over his shoulder. He'd chosen his ambush well, I realized. We were standing in a crevasse made from an ancient stream, with cliffs rising on both sides. He shook the staff at me again, not yet attacking. Realization dawned at the second bellow from the Raider - I was being challenged.

I tossed off my robe, striding forward. Owen had told me much about the Tuskens, most of it colored by his experience of losing his step-mother and our father to their incursions. “Oh, I know they're not all bad,” he'd admitted, though I could see he didn't like to say the words. “But most of 'em are. They're ruthless, and even the ones who aren't attacking the farms outright won't respect anyone who can't kick their asses into submission.”

If this one was on my land, chances are there were more of them. If I didn't take the fight to this one, right now, I was going to have more problems than I could deal with on my own.

The Tusken watched my approach, and I could have sworn he was mocking me as he thrust the gadaffi staff in my direction. I ducked out of the way, my steps on the rocky path nimble. I worked hard to keep my body in shape, fighting through a lot of pain to do so. Now that effort was going to come in handy. I took a deep breath and used the Force to send an enhanced version of the Tusken's frightening roar right back into the masked face of my opponent.

With a muffled growl, the Tusken staggered, and I used the opportunity to kick the gadaffi staff away from him. Another touch of the Force and the staff slid far out of reach.

I grinned; the Tusken had crouched into a more effective battle stance, all trace of mocking gone. Now we were circling each other, watching for movement, tracking arms and legs, searching for weaknesses. The Tusken I faced was well-trained, almost as good as the old hand-to-hand combat masters I'd encountered during the war. He lashed out, the motion a blur, and I blocked a wrapped hand meant to crush my throat. In the same moment, I used one of the dirtier tricks I'd learned over the years to hit a nerve cluster in the shoulder, making sure I hit hard enough to penetrate through the Raider's many layers of clothing. I was gambling a bit, since I had no idea if Tusken physiology was base humanoid or not.

It worked. There was a guttural howl, and the Tusken grabbed his shoulder, his arm hanging limp at his side. Use of the limb would come back in a few minutes, but I didn't dare allow him time to recover. I jumped forward, launching a kick at the Tusken's chin, connecting with a solid thud.

The Tusken went down, still howling through the mask, and I followed, intent on ending this fast. I noticed the knife hidden in a sheath in the Tusken's belt; I grabbed it, kneeling on my opponent's chest and taking the knife to his throat, cutting through the layers of cloth to kiss skin but not cut. The Tusken, about to grab at my wrists, froze.

I had no idea if Tuskens understood Basic or not, but I spoke anyway. “I would give up, if I were you,” I said, conversational tone to my voice. Then I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. “And I'd tell your friends to back off.” The two new Raiders were holding their staffs, but not attacking. Waiting for the outcome of the fight, I guess.

The Tusken I was perched on top of was quiet, as if considering. Then he grunted a wide range of guttural sounds, speaking to the Raiders in question. They lowered their staffs and stepped back, but I sensed the fight wasn't over. My Tusken friend, breathing steadily, made a motion with his arms that was universal: _I give up._

I stood up, carefully, not relinquishing the knife I had acquired. The Tusken also stood, then hooted and gibbered at the other two Raiders for a long moment. I kept my eye on all three of them, not sure what was going on. I expected to be pounced by all three of them at any moment. I vowed I was never leaving that damned hovel without my lightsaber again.

Then the original Tusken turned back to me, and held up his arm. He made a slow motion, as if wanting to make sure I understood, then repeated it. _Follow me,_ it said.

I frowned, considering. I sensed no further danger from these three Tuskens; in fact, the Force was nudging me to follow them, though I also knew that I wasn't out of danger yet. Curious, I tucked the knife into my own belt, picked up my cloak and did as they asked, though I did walk a safe distance behind them in case they decided to change their minds about our temporary truce.

Two hours later, surrounded by their entire Tusken camp and fighting off their warriors, one at a time, I had to wonder if the Force had it in for me. I was panting, not exhausted yet but getting there, as I fought off the latest Tusken brute. Our gadaffi staffs were clashing together fiercely enough that it was making my teeth rattle, but I kept fighting. I had a feeling if I lost now that I'd be in deep, deep trouble.

My only comfort in the whole mess was that once I disarmed and sent an opponent flying, they left the tribe's fighting arena to rejoin the cheering throng. If you could call their howls, clicks, grunts and groans cheering, that was.

I saw an opening and took it, adding a touch of the Force as I brought my gadaffi staff down. The Tusken's staff broke in two, and I ran forward, bulldozing into him and sending him flying. I spun in place, watching for the next Tusken to launch into the arena, weapon at the ready…

…and no further attack came. In fact, the noise the Tuskens were making reached a new crescendo, bouncing off of the canyon walls that encircled their encampment. I lowered my staff, baffled. They were cheering me.

“You people are strange,” I said, shaking my head. Sweat flew from the ends of my hair, and I realized I was drenched and desperate for water. As if reading my thoughts, the crowd parted. Coming towards me were small Tuskens that I assumed were children. One carried a skin that sloshed as the child walked, and the scent of water it carried with it was like ambrosia to my parched senses. The other child carried an adult-sized Tusken mask. There was a third Tusken behind them, and the other Tuskens around me deferred to him with lowered heads and softer grunts and howls. I had the sense that I shouldn't follow suit - at least, not yet.

The child with the mask came to me first, and held it up to me. When I hesitated, the motion was repeated. She or he was insistent that I take the mask. I took it in my hands, and hid a smile; I had an idea that the Tuskens were waiting impatiently for me to put it on so they could get on with... well, with whatever it was that they had in mind. It took me a minute to realize that the mask was a multi-layered system, but I managed to pull the thing over my head and secure it into place. The air I breathed through the mask was as fresh as if I was unencumbered, and my vision wasn't as restricted as I thought it would be. “Interesting,” I said, and while sounds were coming through to me clearly, words were distorted by the complicated breather the mask held. The word that emerged sounded nothing like what I'd said. No wonder the Tuskens communicated the way they did. Words just didn't translate through the mask.

The second child came up once it was clear that I had things worked out and offered the skin to me. I took it, and after some more fumbling that drew amused hoots and grunts from my new friends, I managed to figure out how they drank through the breather. The only thing I was sure they couldn't do was eat solid food through the mask, and I wondered if they subsisted off of a liquid diet.

Once my thirst was slaked, it was time to greet the tribe's elder. This time he nodded to me, and on instinct I presented him with the gadaffi that I had stolen when the fighting began. He took it, held it up, and howled out something complicated. The other Tuskens did the same, repeating the howls in the same pattern. It was definitely something ritualized, and after the howls faded away, he ripped the old leather wrappings off of the gadaffi. In the work of a few minutes he'd placed a new leather wrapping on the staff, patterned in a different way from the first wrapping. Then it was presented back to me, and I accepted it to a new chorus of howling.

I looked at the Tuskens around me, all of them with their staffs in the air, and grinned. I think I was just adopted.

Adoptions in Tusken society seemed to go hand in hand with lots of drinking. Fires were lit as the suns began to set, and before long I was sitting with the same Tuskens who had just tried their best to cave in my skull, listening as they spoke in long bursts of grunt-babble. The long bursts were usually followed by howls of agreement, or in some cases, a guttural patterned sound that I came to realize was laughter. I couldn't understand the language, but I'd been in this situation before. These were warriors telling tall-tales of victories and conquests past, along with a slew of what were probably dirty jokes.

I stood out like a mynock on a ship's hull, Jedi robes with a Tusken helmet on my head. I wished A'Sharad could have been here with me. He had been raised among the Tuskens, and could have interpreted the interesting bits – and maybe he would have been happy.

I expected a hard knot of pain in my chest, and was surprised when nothing happened. For once the memory of another Jedi didn't fill me with a great big knot of grief. I would never forget, but perhaps the overwhelming, choking pain of it was finally easing.

I sat with the Tuskens for hours, trying to catch bits of the language, and to my surprise, enjoying the company. I hadn't realized how lonely I was until that moment. Even the fact that I had to knock about a hundred heads together earlier in the day no longer bothered me.

Around midnight, the desert chill was catching hold. I was wondering what I was going to do for the night when another Tusken sat down close to me, his hand touching my arm. While all of the Tuskens dressed in identical fashion, somehow I knew it was the first one I'd met today. The come-hither gesture was repeated, and this time I followed without waiting for a second invitation. I was no longer in danger from this tribe, though I had a feeling there would be a few fights in the future. Their way of training was very brutal, and I gathered that they enjoyed every minute of it.

My friend guided me through the encampment's maze of hide tents, pulling aside the flap of one at the far side of the camp, and gestured for me to go inside. I did so, and found myself bathed in the soft glow of light from a small fire that burned in an enclosure. The well-designed wrought-metal kept the flames from burning the tent walls. There was no smoke, which made me wonder what the fuel source was. A low table cobbled together from old vaporator parts was in the center of the room, and on it was a mix of different foods, most of it the kind of rare treats that hid in the cliff walls and cave systems that riddled the Jundland Wastes. There was a stack of wool blankets and soft hides, neatly folded, in another corner, and I guessed that they probably took the place of the table for sleeping.

I turned to discover that my companion had removed his mask, and realized that he was actually a she. Despite the muted light, I could see that her hair, braided tight to her head, was the deep honey that Tahl's had once been. Her eyes were almost the same color as her hair. Her skin was ghostly pale, unsurprising given that she hid from the sun under a mound of clothing. “You can take that off now,” she said in flawless Basic, and I couldn't be rid of the mask fast enough.

“You speak Basic?” I spluttered, the moment I was free of the breather's distortion.

She laughed at the expression on my face. “Of course I do. My name is Darahn Veila.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you face to face, Darahn Veila,” I said, smiling. This day was going far better than I'd ever expected it to when I crawled out of bed this morning. “I'm Ben Kenobi.”

She grinned. “Ben Kenobi. Sit down and share this meal with me, Ben, before all of those spirits you consumed go to your head.”

I shook my head, bemused, and sat cross-legged before her table. We spoke as we ate, and she told me that she'd been rescued by this tribe as a child, after her family's ship had crashed in the Dune Sea. She and her brother had been the only survivors - in fact, he was the Tusken whose gadaffi staff I'd broken during the fight. “I hope that doesn't mean anything bad for him,” I dared to say, still not sure I fully understood what I'd participated in today.

She was nibbling on a pallie, savoring it. “Never fear, Ben. As you have proven your worth to the tribe, his defeat will be treated as a point of honor. The staff will be repaired, and Drath will happily tell his kin that it was broken by another member of the tribe. We take pride in each other's strengths, because it makes us stronger as a whole.”

“Ah,” I said. That explained part of this afternoon. I was right about the adoption, at least. It seemed the Tusken tribes - or at least this one - were a blend of humans and the original humanoid species of Tusken. The biology was close enough that interbreeding happened on a regular basis, I surmised, since she told me that her brother had married a Tusken woman, and Darahn was an aunt to several children.

We continued with the meal, which disappeared quickly. After going most of the day without food, I was more than happy to eat everything in front of me, even though in several instances I didn't know what it was. “I knew I'd pegged you for the warrior type,” Darahn was saying. “But I didn't expect a Jedi.”

I managed to keep chewing my food, and didn't so much as twitch. Mace would have been proud. “Sorry, no Jedi here.”

She tilted her head. “Mmmhmmm. And gundarks fly.”

“With the proper jet propulsion, of course they do,” I countered, and she laughed, her white teeth flashing in the dim light.

“All right. I will concede your point, though we both know otherwise.”

“How did you know?” I asked, though it probably wasn't that hard. Jedi robes and desert garb were one and the same on Tatooine, but I was the only one with a lightsaber.

“I have been watching you for some time, Ben.” The surprised me - I thought I'd done a better job of keeping an eye out for guests. However, today had taught me that the Sand People were talented at blending into the background, even in the Force. “Even if I hadn't known what a lightsaber was, I have seen you do your exercises with it. You move in a way that no one could move unless he was a Jedi. I was old enough when I came to this planet to know what your kind are like.”

I felt a self-deprecating smile twist my lips. “And what are we like, Darahn?”

“Visually pleasing,” Darahn said, and shocked me by leaning across the table to kiss me.

She smiled at me as I stared back, still feeling the echo of soft lips caressing my own. Force, it had been a long time. Every nerve ending I had demanded that I seek more of the same. “I do believe I'm missing a vital piece of information,” I said, not a little bewildered.

She reached up and began to unbind her hair, letting down thick strands that fell to her waist. “I said I'd been watching you for a long time. At first it was for the tribe - we wanted to know what kind of man we were sharing land with. The last farmer who lived here allowed us to stay in our ancestral valley, and if you were going to try to force us away, we wanted to know what to expect. When the time was right, it was agreed that one of us would confront you.” Her smile became fierce, though that fierceness was not directed at me. “I fought my way through half of the tribe to make sure that person was me. Then, while waiting for the right opportunity, I kept watch. I like what I see, Ben.” Her eyes were full of desire, and I couldn't help but notice that her lips were full and moist, with a sultry twist to them. It was the kind of expression that I hadn't seen in several years, but my body remembered. “I would like very much for you to share my bed.”

The offer was tempting - more than tempting, even though my preferences had always leaned towards the masculine. There was something about Darahn that I found very attractive. Still, I wasn't certain I wanted to walk this path.

Some of what I was feeling must have shown on my face. She laughed. “I'm not looking for one to dwell with for the rest of my lifetime. If such a one exists that I could tolerate having around all the time, I have yet to meet him.” I smiled, understanding exactly what she meant. “I have been looking for someone for a long time to be the father of my children. A warrior of great ability would have been a kindness. A Jedi was more than I ever hoped for.”

Children. I opened my mouth and then closed it again. Really, I wasn't sure what I would have said. I had never given much thought to having children, having long ago come to terms with my life and my body's inability. Now, though, after everything that had happened, the idea of being able to help someone conceive seemed like a blessing. In this age where Force-sensitive children had become an endangered species... For the first time, I regretted my own biology.

“Darahn” I sighed. “You know, I've received that proposition before, and have always turned it down. No regrets, no concerns. Now?” I gave her a sad smile. “I was born sterile, Dar. I can't give you what you want.”

She closed her eyes, a line of frustration appearing on her brow. “Damn it all. The good ones either prefer men, or are sterile.”

“I don't suppose it would help if I said I was generally both.”

She opened her eyes and grinned at me. “No, it doesn't help. But it's funny.” Then she leaned forward over the small table, and she was kissing me again. This time I savored it. Her lips were warm, and she tasted like jaka berries and mint. Her hair smelled like clean desert wind. “Well,” she said, breaking the kiss. “I suppose I will have to keep looking. In the meantime, I still would like it very much if you would stay with me tonight.”

I thought about it for all of two seconds before I signaled my agreement by leaning in for another of her mint-berry kisses.

 

*          *          *          *

 

I was sitting in my home, trying to puzzle my way through a new programming code that was gaining popularity, when I realized I had company. I looked up, and to my credit, my fingers did not go immediately to my lightsaber.

The pale-skinned man leaning against the wall grinned and nodded, as if thanking me for that bit of hospitality. He pushed a lock of black hair away from his jewel-blue eyes. “I miss the red,” he said, looking at me with a wistful expression. “It suited you so much better.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, but hearing Xanatos of Telos speak did make me realize one thing: I was dreaming. I was also bewildered – I hadn’t seen the man since he had taken his last, half-crazed dive into a pool of acid. “May I… help you with something?” I asked, still trying to decide if my mind was playing tricks on me. Xanatos and I had very little history together, and his presence didn’t make sense to me.

He smiled and stepped forward, but there was no menace in the action, no hint of a threat. “No. Not really,” Xanatos said, walking up to me and stopping, a ghost of the old sardonic smile on his face. “I didn’t come here to ask anything of you. I just… wanted to see you. See how you were.” With that he reached out, and the last thing I felt before I woke up was Xanatos tracing a gentle line down the side of my face with warm fingertips.

I sat up in bed, my home filling with the faint light of first dawn. There was a whisper in the Force, the sense of passage through it, similar to what had once marked Qui-Gon’s visits.

_What the fuck?_

 

*          *          *          *

 

Running a moisture farm solo meant that I had plenty of water to support myself and the plants that I grew underground. After Darahn introduced me to the cold spring hidden in the cave system near their valley and told me that I could harvest from it any time I needed (provided I wore full Tusken garb, which she gave to me), I became a rich man.

Being rich in water was a bewildering experience, as almost nowhere in the galaxy was water given the value that it had on Tatooine. It was also the only place I knew of where water had just as much value as Cho-Mar, unless you happened to be sitting on your own spring. As far as I knew, only Jabba's Palace could make that claim.

At this point, my speeder bike had seen better days. I used it to travel to the local towns to barter with my water for things that I needed, and keeping the poor thing running in Tatooine’s sandy environment was becoming a real challenge. I acquired parts by trading with my water, keeping the bike in decent condition, and then I listened to the Force and started selling the water out-right, building up a small stash of credits.

It was almost a year later that I discovered what I would need the credits for. In the middle of practicing a kata from the _vapaad_ and cursing Mace for teaching me the insane thing in the first place, my lightsaber shorted out.

I stared at the hilt, my thumb triggering the power button again out of habit. Then I swore such a streak of vileness that I scared a womp rat out of hiding. The creature gave me a displeased look before retreating further into its cave.

The power cell on my lightsaber had just used up the last of its shelf-life. I sat on a rock, breathing deeply and wiping the sweat from my face. My first order of business was to bathe, and find clothing that looked less abused. Then I was going to have to collect my meager stash of credits, plus a few other possible bartering pieces, and head into Anchorhead.

The X-T 29 power cell had been rare even before the war. Finding a replacement was going to be a bitch.

As I'd already surmised, Anchorhead didn't have what I needed. The local mechanic, a large brute that went by the name of Wheeze, waved to me when I pulled up on the speeder and ripped off my face mask. “Hey, it's the wizard!” he yelled, and I smiled. He meant it to be mocking, but I didn't mind. I had far thicker skin than the man could possibly conceive of.

“Help me out, Wheezer?” I asked, tossing him the dead power cell.

He caught it with ease, eyeballed the X-T and then gave me a disgusted look. “You wan' one a those? Those are worthless bits. You want the Tee-Jay Eighty, 'swhat you want. Longer shelf-life, good recharge time. Got a handful inside.”

I managed not to exhale in frustration. I disliked working with Wheezer - he would have been better off as a salesman instead of acting mechanic to a bunch of desperate farmers. Kept trying to up sell the locals on parts that wouldn't even function in their equipment. “The Tee-Jay is far too big for what I need. It must be in the Ex-Tee series, or it doesn't do me any damned good.”

Wheezer snorted. “Then maybe you need to ditch what you're using and upgrade to something newer.”

I thought about the lightsaber hidden within the back of my belt and shook my head. If I thought that I could find all of the parts needed to rebuild my lightsaber, I might have considered a different type of power cell. Tatooine, however, didn't have those resources. Hell, not even Anakin's old lightsaber ran off of the X-T. My lost Padawan had always been quick to adapt to newer technology. “Not possible. I'll have to go on to Mos Eisley and try my luck there. Thanks.”

I turned to go, already wondering if my usual Mos Eisley contact would be available, when Wheezer stopped me. “Forget Mos Eisley, old man. You wanna try Mos Espa.”

I peered back over my shoulder at Wheezer. “Mos Espa? That's a good two days away. At least Mos Eisley I could make by nightfall.”

Wheezer shook his head. “Nah, trust me, Mister Wizard. You wanna hit Mos Espa. There's a junk dealer there, name of Watto. If he don't got it, there's nobody on this rock that'll have what you need. And if you hang out a few days, Watto can probably get his hands on what he don't have.”

I frowned, something teasing the edge of my consciousness. The name sounded familiar. “Thanks, Wheezer,” I said, meaning it this time. “I'll make the attempt.”

“I'd tell ya to be careful, but you already live on the ass-end of the Jundland Wastes. You know what you're gettin' into.” Wheezer said, grinning. “See ya later, old man.”

I managed to make the trip into Mos Espa in what was possibly record time. I'd never been before, and finding a room for the night was going to be difficult enough without trying to do it in the dark. After some searching and a push from the Force, I found an old human woman, bent with age, who had just about as many wrinkles as Master Yoda. She was selling pallies in the shade of a canopy-covered stall. Her name was Jira, and the way she looked me up and down when I introduced myself and asked about lodging for the night told me that, despite her appearance, she was far from death's door.

“Aye, I have a room that you could use, as long as you don't mind that you'd be in the slave quarters.”

“I don't care, Lady Jira,” I said, and she cackled at me.

“Listen to this young man!” she said, her smile lighting up her entire face. “Lady! Bah. None of those in this town.” She tossed me a pallie, and I tossed a five-bit of Cho-Mar back to her. She pocketed the credit inside her robe, and I bit down on tart, soothing fruit. I still felt parched from the long ride, despite the water I'd drank. “Not seen you before, Ben. What brings you to Mos Espa?”

“Rare power cell,” I said, finishing the pallie in record time. The little treats were worth their weight in credits for soothing dehydration. “A mech in Anchorhead told me that there was a man named Watto here that might be able to help me.”

“Yeah, Watto might can help you, but he's not a man. He's a Toydarian, and a calculating bastard. You watch he doesn't take you for every credit you've got.”

“I thought that was Jabba's job,” I replied.

Her expression darkened. “Yeah. I was never happier than when the worm stopped coming here, leaving us the hell alone.” She gave me a penetrating stare, but I didn't flinch. Jira was a strong woman, but as far as piercing looks went, she had hefty competition from my former Masters. “You go on an' see Watto. He normally doesn't close up shop until after dark. See if he's got what you need, then come meet me back here. I'll wait.”

She gave me directions to Watto's shop, and it wasn't hard to find. The Toydarian knew how to advertise, if the more useful bits of machinery sitting outside his shop were any indication. I nudged a folded-up droid with my foot, considering. I hadn't even been inside yet, but I could see that Watto had things in his possession that I hadn't seen in years.

I ducked through the open doorway, forcing my eyes to adjust quickly to the dimmer light. A blue Toydarian was sitting behind a worn counter that was littered with parts, swearing in Huttese at a datapad he held. Then he saw me, and his wings carried his overweight bulk into the air. I caught myself wondering how those tiny wings moved that weight and hid a smile.

“What the hell do you want?” Watto snapped in Huttese. “We're almost closed, and some of us want to go home.”

“My apologies,” I replied in the same language. “If you like, I can return tomorrow.”

As if sniffing the potential loss of a sale, Watto waved my words away. “Nah. Don't worry about it. What do you want?” he asked, flitting closer. His wings were beating the air like overstressed cooling fans.

“I'm looking for a rare power cell. Ex-Tee Twenty-Nine, high energy class. Wheezer in Anchorhead told me that you might have one.”

“Wheezer, huh? Haven't seen him in awhile. He sent you to the right place, though!” Watto rubbed his hands together. “Give me until noon tomorrow, I'll find what you need. Even if I can't find an Ex-Tee Twenty-Nine, I betcha I've got an Ee-Three-Ex. Same size, same power. Might have to adjust your connections, but it'll do the job.”

I paused in surprise. I'd forgotten all about the E-3s. “Yes, actually. That would also work.” I didn't dare think about how much work it was going to be to alter those connections, especially since my access to the proper tools was long, long gone. One problem at a time.

I was back five minutes before noon the next day, having spent a comfortable night on Jira's floor. The woman was a kind host and left breakfast for me in her tiny kitchen, having risen before I awoke to return to her stall in the marketplace. In thanks I left her a portion of the water I'd brought from home, plus a gemstone with good value from the Jundland caves, cut and shaped with my lightsaber before the power cell blew. The stone alone would barter her a full pantry for a month.

Watto didn't have the X-T 29, but he did have the E-3-X. Better than that, it was new. I held the tiny cell between my thumb and forefinger in amazement, grateful. I had found something that would power my lightsaber for the next fifteen years, at least.

“That's going to cost you,” he warned.

“I imagine it will,” I said in return, placing the power cell on the dirty counter. There was a holocube on a shelf behind the countertop, and I paused. “Family?” I asked, seeing an array of Toydarians all crammed together in one image.

“Yeah - what's it to you?” Watto asked, and I could feel him glaring at me.

“Merely curious,” I said. The cube was set to auto-shift every few moments, apparently loaded with an immense array of different blue Toydarians. “I'm surprised they're not helping you run the store.”

Watto was quiet so long that I turned back to face him. He was staring at the holo, engrossed in his own thoughts. I remembered how many people had lost family during the war and felt like an immense idiot. “Forgive me - I shouldn't have pried.”

He waved his hand at me again, a dismissing gesture. “Nah, nah. It's alright. They died a long time ago.”

“What happened?” I asked, sensing that he wouldn't mind the question.

He shrugged. “Offworld. They wanted to mine underneath our city and offered to purchase the land. We didn't want to sell. So, they made... other arrangements.”

Offworld. I frowned. It had been a long time since they had been a concern, and the memories weren't pleasant. “I'm sorry.” The words felt trite. “I lost friends to their business practices, also.”

“Eehhh. It's no big deal. You got any credits or what?” Watto said, his brusque manner returning. “That's a rare chip. I want eight hundred!”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Eight hundred? That's a bit steep for something that once sold for three hundred Republic.”

“Hah! The Republic's dead, and I don't take Imperial credits either. You want it, you pay for it!”

I calculated what I had in credits, plus what I had stashed in a hidden compartment of my speeder outside. “I can give you four hundred credits, plus I have several items for plausible trade. One of the items in question is worth a considerable sum.”

Watto frowned. “All right. Bring it in here and let's see it.”

The item in question was another stone, the second Tatooine Emerald I had found and cut. I’d been holding onto it for months. It was worth far more than eight hundred Cho-Mar, but I'd give it up to have a working lightsaber again. After carrying one for all but the first years of my life, I felt naked without it.

A touch of the Force made sure no one would pay attention to what one old man was doing to his speederbike. I locked the compartment again and slid the cover back into place, re-entering Watto's shop.

The holo-cube was changing images, catching my eye as I stepped into the cool air of the shop. When it settled through its shuffle pattern again, I stopped breathing in shock.

My brother had a single holo of Shmi Skywalker standing next to my father, shortly after they were married. It was how I knew what she had looked like. Next to her in Watto's hologram was a very young Anakin Skywalker. Both of them stood together, smiling with genuine pleasure. Anakin had his arms around his mother's waist, and Shmi had her left arm lying across Anakin's shoulders.

Watto noticed my rapt attention. “You like 'em, huh?” He grinned broadly, a sharp change in his previous attitude. “That's my Ani! Best kid I ever owned! Shmi's his mother. It's been years, but I keep the holo, you know? They were good people, good people.”

“I can understand that,” I managed to get past dry lips. That was why Watto's name had seemed so familiar. Qui-Gon had mentioned him once while we were on our way back to Coruscant with Padmé's retinue, long, long ago. Anakin had spoken of him once or twice, and he'd never seemed angry at the Toydarian he'd been owned by. “You seem very fond of them.”

“Yeah!” Watto said, his wings fanning the air in enthusiasm. “I owned him when he became the only human in history to win a pod race! Nine years old! Not even that damned Jedi who bargained him right out from underneath me could say something like that!” He paused. “I lost a great deal of money in that race,” he said, as if confiding a big secret. Perhaps it was. “But I couldn't blame Ani for that. Was my own fault for betting against him. I always knew he could do it! Then after he left, his mother was... well, she was depressed. And then this moisture farmer came sniffing around, acting like he wanted to buy Shmi, but I knew better. They were mooning over each other like they were in season! So I let 'em give me a pittance for her. She was never the same after Ani left – I didn't want her to blow herself up.”

“Is that how my father acquired his wife?” I found myself saying, the words coming from far away.

Watto laughed. “Your father? I should've known! You Lars types can't stay the hell away from my shop!” Watto was practically slapping my shoulder with glee. I don't know how I managed to keep my knees under me. It had been so long since I had been able to think of Anakin as anything but Darth Vader. I looked at the picture of the smiling child standing next to his mother, and remembered how much I'd loved him.

“So how is Shmi?” Watto was saying, looking at me expectantly. “And Ani?”

I felt like crying, mourning anew what had been lost to the dark. “Shmi died years ago. The Tuskens raided the farmsteads in their area, and tortured her to death. My father was severely injured trying to rescue her, but it was Anakin who finally brought her home.” I sighed, rubbing my hand through my beard. Force, but this was hard. “My father died of his injuries a few years later.”

“Ani?” Watto asked, knowing there was more. I felt badly for him. These were people he had obviously cared a great deal for, despite owning them as slaves, and I had nothing but grief to give him.

“Anakin was a brilliant Jedi Knight,” I said, forcing myself to remember all of the good qualities Anakin had represented, rather than the bad ones he had fallen prey to. “He was a great pilot, and a great one for saving your neck. He thrived in battle, and won the respect of millions. He died at the end of the war.” Now I was crying, and wiped my face impatiently. Telling people that Anakin had died at the end of the war was true, in a way. It was better than people knowing the whole truth. “He was my best friend. He was my brother.”

Watto stared at me with a slight frown on his face. “You're Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

I shook my head. “Not anymore, I'm not.”

“Humph.” Watto looked down, his hands on his hips. “Yeah, I know how it is.” He was quiet for another moment, then flew over and picked up the power cell before throwing it at me. I caught it, confused. “Take it. Take it and get outta here.”

“I…” Watto's shop was still doing well, but I knew he'd lost business when Jabba moved his operations. Mos Eisley got most of the space traffic now. “I can't just take this.”

“No, it's okay. Really,” Watto said, folding his arms and looking grumpier than ever. “The last time I saw Ani, he told me about you. Said if you ever needed anything, I should help you out, 'cause it was probably important.” He stared hard at me. “You came a long way for this. You take it, and you use it, and you remember Ani.”

I gripped the power cell tightly in my hand. “I... thank you. I will remember.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

Arriving home, I drained the vaporators of their harvest before the Jawas could steal it, pouring it into the cistern beneath my home. I checked on the plants, made sure no one had been nosing around the crazy old wizard's house in my absence, and then settled in to work.

Taking my lightsaber apart was easy. Putting it back together again was going to make my brain hurt. I stared at it, and was tempted to repeat my swearing routine from the cave.

One of my crystals had cracked when the power cell shorted out.

I rested my head in my hands, letting out a deep sigh. The power cell replacement was easy in comparison. There was no gemstone on Tatooine that could function as a lightsaber crystal. I couldn't afford to leave the planet again. I was out of options.

I left the table with a pervading air of disgust, pacing the confines of my small home. When that failed to calm me, I knelt down on the floor, stuffed a pillow under my aching knees, and settled into meditation.

Meditation now was nothing like it had been when I was younger. The Force flowed around me like a living thing, altering my perceptions, whispering of ideas both new and old. I listened for a while, drifting in the soft current, and thought about what I was hearing.

 _I couldn't possibly do that,_ I said, disbelieving, when the Force presented me with a solution.

If Qui-Gon had still been around, he would have laughed at me.

Instead of acting on the idea, I stayed away from my disassembled lightsaber for a few days, letting the concept brew in the back of my mind. It seemed like an impossible thing, but then again, impossible things happened all the time lately. I knew if I approached my lightsaber with a negative mindset, my attempts would be doomed to failure.

I kept up with the simple chores of running the small moisture farm. I met with Darahn and became sufficiently distracted for a night. I found a new series of cliff niches not far from her tribe's encampment and came home with a fresh supply of muja fruit. The entire time, I kept thinking about the solution to my lightsaber problems, and wondered if any other Jedi were mulling over a similar dilemma.

I spent time walking my property, mapping new areas. By the third day, I was so distracted by thoughts of lightsaber crystals and fault lines that I failed to notice the droid trap until I stumbled into it.       The ground fell out from underneath me, and I went with it, my hands scrabbling for purchase down the steep walls and finding none. The fall was short, but it was enough to do damage - before I could bring the Force to bear to catch myself, I hit bottom. I bit my lip as my leg buckled and then cracked. I saw stars and drifted out.

I woke up to find myself in an awkward standing position, embraced by steep rock walls on all sides. My leg was throbbing in time with my heartbeat, and I knew I'd managed to fracture it in the exact same way I had before, ages ago, when Tahl was murdered. My chin felt stiff, and licking my lips brought the realization that I had bitten through my lower lip. My chin and throat were probably covered in dried blood.

 _Fuck,_ I thought dismally. Getting myself home was going to be a challenge. I looked up and amended that. The tiny box canyon I was in rose for another four feet above my head. Chimney-climbing it would have been easy if I hadn't just broken my leg. Getting _out_ was going to be a challenge.

I pushed my arms firmly against the cliff walls and pushed off with my left leg, squinting as sand and another slew of pebbles rained down on my face. I didn't know which Jawa clan had decided to set up a droid trap near my home, but when I found out... I contemplated a Jawa-roast and changed my mind. They smelled bad enough as it was.

I gritted my teeth hard enough for my jaw to ache as my right leg protested every movement I made. _Shut. Up._ A touch of the Force and the pain faded, though I was still stuck in a hole. Frivolous use of the Force be damned, I was getting the hell out of here. I stopped bracing myself on the walls and levitated myself up and out, dropping myself to the ground on my good leg.

I got a look at the damage and winced. Compound fracture, again, and my pants were dark with blood and dust. I consulted my inner map and realized I was at least two kilometers from home. I thought about it, and in one of the more interesting applications of the Force I'd yet come up with, I created a wall of energy around my leg. I let it settle into place, an invisible hard shell that would keep me from doing any further damage while I limped my way along through the sand and rock.

It was full dark by the time I returned, and my breath left my lips in a fine white mist. No predators were going to come near me tonight - the closer to home I got, the louder I had begun to swear. I couldn't afford to be laid up for any length of time, I couldn't afford to be sick, I couldn't afford an infection. My favorite invectives I always saved for myself. If I'd been paying more attention, I wouldn't have landed in that damned hole in the first place. Yoda would have used that gimer stick of his to paint my shins with bruises for being so careless.

I walked into my home, the air pleasantly warm after a cold stroll through the dark desert, and plopped down with ill grace on a chair. I considered my options, most of which weren't pleasant. Shrugging, I dropped the encasement of energy from my leg, then used a knife from my belt to cut my pants from ankle to upper thigh. They weren’t going to be any good after this, anyway. I looked at the damage, and my stomach only stirred once and left me alone. Yellow and white bone jutted through my skin, which was lacerated all to hell and covered with dried blood and sand. I took off my shirt and threw it on the floor under my leg, then grabbed a sealed pitcher of water from the table next to me. I tweaked the nerves of my leg with the Force, cutting the pain even further, and then began to carefully wash all of the wounds. Blood began to flow again, sluggish, and I let it, knowing that it would help to flush everything clean. I smiled, feeling sad. For all the times that I had complained about being in the Healer's hands, I would have loved to see one of them now. Having Abella alive and giving me one of those looks of concern and amusement, or Terza yelling at me…

I sighed and wished I'd paid more attention to them, during all of the times they had patched me or Anakin or any number of us back together. I was going to have to set the bone in my leg, and I didn't have the faintest idea of how to set such a complicated break.

 _Trust in the Force,_ I thought, swallowing back my nervousness as I placed both of my hands on my leg, around the spot where bone had parted skin. _And remember if you screw this up, you have to break it again._

I opened myself to the Force, letting it filter my sight, allowing me to see the path the bone was supposed to follow. I could also see that an infection was already trying to set in. There were antibiotics in my med kit, but at this point I had a feeling they were too old to be useful. One problem at a time, though. If I didn't do this now, I was going to lose my nerve. “One... two... three.” On three I pushed the bone down in the proper alignment, screamed, and covered the wound with both hands. Fresh blood flowed as I destroyed the clots that had already formed. “Oh, fuck me, fuck all, that was daft!” I yelled. At that moment I was certain that I would happily hand over my lightsaber if it meant a Jedi Healer would darken my doorway.

After a moment of swearing and seeing black specks dance in my vision, I could focus again, and used every technique I knew for distancing myself from the pain. I couldn't tweak the nerves with everything back in place, because the nerves needed to be able to tell my body what to do next. I forced myself to breathe normally. “All right. See, that wasn't so bad. Ohhh, you're a daft git,” I told myself, half-laughing, because laughing was better than screaming.

I called over a clean towel from its hiding place in the 'fresher, then the med kit which was stored in my tiny kitchen. Before I tried getting up again, I needed to bind my leg up as well as I could. Even before I did that, though, I opened my precious jar of bacta gel and slathered over half of its contents onto every single open wound I could find.

It took most of the tape in my med-kit, along with another towel and two strips of metal for support, but I managed a semi-decent cast. I put the energy encasement back into place and stood. It was the work of another hour to slake my thirst and refill all of the sealed water vessels in my home. Then I snagged something to eat and shuffled my way over to my bed. I lay down, feeling my leg throb in time with my pulse. I couldn't let the injury heal with time - not when something like this took, at best, two months to recover from.

I closed my eyes and thought back to one of Qui-Gon's unexpected visits, before he'd disappeared from my life completely. We'd been arguing about his staring at me, since he was blue and glowed in the dark. I'd been so happy to see him and yet couldn't even admit it out loud. At least the argument had led into theory about Force Healing – or I had thought it theory, until Qui-Gon had given me a strange look.

_“Obi-Wan, I think I might have another lesson for you,” he said, smiling._

_“Oh?” I couldn't resist baiting him. “Have you finally learned to cook, now that you don't need the skill?”_

_“Very funny. Yoda doesn't prattle on about my lack of culinary skill.”_

_I laughed. “That's because he doesn’t need the competition. What's this lesson, blue and shiny one?”_

_He raised an eyebrow, reached out with one transparent hand, and gave me such a swat on the shoulder that it physically translated. I touched my shoulder in shock, amazed - for one moment, I had actually felt his familiar warmth. “Now that I have your attention,” he said, “I will tell you of something that could one day save your life. You know of the hibernation trance, though for quite some time very few Jedi have been using that to the best of our ability. Master Yaddle was adept, but she was using Morichro, which is Force-induced hibernation in its ultimate form.”_

_I nodded. Master Yaddle might as well have taken the secret of that technique to the pyre with her, for her students never had the chance to pass on that knowledge. War and the Purges saw to that. “What is this called, then?”_

_“I am going to tell you about Sahtore,” he said, and for some damned reason my brain insisted to me that I knew that word. I frowned for a moment, searching my memories, but found nothing. Qui-Gon was watching me, and the moment he knew he had my full attention again, he continued. “Those who practiced Sahtore could place themselves in something very like a coma, programming their bodies to heal from immense damage. It is not without its dangers, however. Sahtore does not slow down the body. In a technical sense, it speeds it up. Like Morichro, it is very dangerous. The longer you spend in that state, the more of your body's reserves you burn up. It is as possible to kill yourself with these techniques as it is to heal yourself with them, as the ancient Masters well knew.”_

_I thought about it. Despite the inherent risk involved, it sounded like an excellent skill to learn. “That would have been damned useful ten years ago. Between that and bacta, we could have saved a lot of lives.” Qui-Gon dipped his head in silent agreement. “If I were to attempt this, what would I do?”_

_Qui-Gon smiled at me and began to speak..._

I sank into a deeper meditative state, setting my body and mind up to utilize Sahtore for the first time. I’d learned that it was never useful if you'd been incapacitated, considering the amount of concentration it took to use the Force to attain that state, but right now it was perfect. I programmed myself a wake-up call, meant to rouse me when my internal clock said a full twenty-six hours had passed. Hopefully no one would visit in the meantime and try to bury me. Or worse, put me on a pyre.

Two days later, when I could focus again without my head spinning, I sat back down at my work table. My leg was almost fully healed, though there was a deep ache that told me I should probably continue to take it easy for a few more days.

 _Through the Force, all things are possible,_ I told myself, touching the dark sapphire, one of three that had created the blade of my lightsaber for over a decade. I closed my eyes, letting the Force flow through me, through my hand, as I investigated the cracked crystal. The flaw ran over the bottom edge, but I turned my attention away from that, trying to find another natural fault line within the crystal. After a few minutes I found what I was looking for. I touched it with the Force, probing the line, picturing what the crystal would look like after the break. It would be smaller than the other two crystals, but if I adjusted the bracket right, I was certain that it would still work.

 _Trust in the Force,_ I repeated the mantra I held close to my heart. I took a deep breath, let it out, and released the energy I'd held back.

It cracked, exactly as I had wanted it to, the edge as smooth as if I had done the work with a cutting tool. I drew in a shaky breath, picking up the newly shaped crystal, and clutched it in hands that were a bit sweatier than I was ever going to admit to anyone. “Little gods,” I whispered, leaning forward to let my forehead rest on my table. Breathing out a laugh, and centering my focus again, I set to work on adjusting the bracket for the crystal. Then I spent another couple of hours altering the connections for the new power cell.

When I was done, I held out my finished lightsaber and inspected it with the Force. There was no one else around to confirm that my work was solid, so I was stuck doing it myself. If I fucked up and ignited a shoddy blade, I likely wouldn't live long enough to feel stupid. This time, though, the lightsaber was true. I ignited the blade and smiled as my lightsaber came back to life.

 

*          *          *          *

 

“Again!” Darahn yelled, and I spun around, catching her gadaffi staff on mine. I countered, sweat flying from the ends of my hair as I spun in place. She did a back-flip, escaping my attack and landing in a battle-ready crouch.

I leapt forward, the staff raised, caught her staff with mine and then missed her damned leg. The kick caught me in the chest and I stumbled back as a surprised rush of air left my lungs. “You are _fast!_ ” I said, admiring her speed, agility, and willingness to teach me a martial art that could get us both killed, if the Mistryl Shadow Guard caught us.

“And you! You’re better than this!” she snapped back, spinning her staff in an arc before tossing it aside, advancing on me with nothing but her bare hands – deadly weapons in their own right. It had taken me a long time to discover that her parents had come to Tatooine as vigilantes from the Mistryl, and that Darahn had been well-trained before her mother’s death.

I blocked the punch she threw at me, then the kick, skirting around her swift strikes and managing to finally deliver one of my own. That advantage lasted about two seconds before two more kicks meant that I yielded with her fist just shy of my throat. “Damn!” I managed, realizing only then that I was gasping for air. I sank down onto my knees, feeling the dull, deep ache take hold in my bones. Damn, again. It was getting harder and harder to push that to the side, to ignore that pain and keep moving.

She dropped down onto the sandy floor of our practice cave next to me, concern in her eyes. “My Ben, we cannot do this anymore. The demands of the Mistryl katas have become too much for you.”

I was silent for a long moment. What could I say to that, really? She was right. We both knew that I was far too young to be this damned old, but there was nothing we could do about it. “You know… I promised someone that I would learn one of his katas, as well. I only progressed so far before I could not do it any longer with a blade. By hand I managed to go farther, but…” I bit off a fierce line of cursing that I wanted to give vent to. The Force was my ally, and would always come to my defense if I called it, but I was so tired of this constant, enduring agony. It ate the years I had left. It ate my ability to fly. I so missed flying, barely touching the ground as I performed katas from the _ataru_.

Darahn smiled at me, and I found understanding there, and a near-baffling sense of forgiveness. I hadn’t realized I needed it until she offered it to me. “Let us go back to your home, my _ghanae’entaal_.” I smiled back; it was always flattering when she called me her shield-mate. “The Mistryl know of more things to do with our hands than they like to admit to.”

Her time in my home started out innocent, as she kneaded my sore, aching muscles, and I relaxed into her touch. When her smile became naughty, and she pinned me beneath her and used her touch for other things, I happily acquiesced.

It was only later, when she was resting in my arms, her head pillowed on my chest, that she spoke again. “I have seen it in your eyes, my Ben. You really do not fear death, do you?”

I shook my head, wrinkling my nose when her trailing hair tickled. “I have nothing to fear, Darahn. For a long time, despite my upbringing, I saw it as an ending. But it is not that. It’s just another part of the journey, nothing more.”

She sat up, settling her weight on one arm, and smiled at me. She reached up with her other hand to trace the curve of my lip with her callused fingertips. “Now you are acting like my wise Jedi,” she said, her eyes over-bright. “I know that soon, one of us is leaving this place, though I do not yet know how, or why. But I do know this: I will miss you, Ben-who-is-not-Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

I caught her fingers with my own, laying a kiss upon her palm. “I will miss you as well, Darahn Veila of the Havan’ath tribe. May the Force be with us both.”

 

 

*          *          *          *

 

If there was an inevitable truth in life, it was that you could get used to anything. Sun, sand, unending heat, worn clothing, aching joints, nightmares – with enough time, the edges wear thin. The immediate threat or harsh sensation fades back, becoming a background noise. After a time, you have to search for it to hear it. Blinding light becomes the norm, and if you’ve lost most of your ability to see in the dark, at least you can function during the day. The sand that once irritated unceasingly is almost unnoticed, as long as you can keep it off the bits that will _always_ be sensitive. You dress in layers and are cooler for it, since your body has figured out that sweating in the desert is a stupid idea and now conserves so much water that it’s hard to take a decent piss. The pain from too many old wounds only hammers with screaming sonic fingers on occasion, making it hard to get up, hard to muster the energy for basic chores, but you manage. When you live in a land where your choices are doing or dying, you learn to be ambitious even when the very thought of moving makes you want to weep.

The nightmares, though…those never really lose their urgency, their horror. I can push the threat of them back during the day, can drift with serenity in the currents of the Force and know that I have found my peace, but my subconscious still likes to play its cruel little jokes.

I had been serious when I had told Qui-Gon years ago that sleep and I were done with each other. I managed enough to make my body happy, but when I could avoid it I filled my time with other things. I found in myself a strange need to write things down, filling expensive bound journals with a messy scrawl that never got better despite hours of practice in the creche as a child. It’s like catharsis of a different sort, though there are things that I still would not confess, not even to a blank white page. Some parts of my heart are for me alone. It’s sort of funny – I can write about my last, horrible duel with Anakin on Mustafar with ease, but Qui-Gon Jinn? Not so much.

I admit, my peace is not perfect, but it is what it is. Considering what I have done with my life, and what I hold myself responsible for, I think myself lucky to have it. And if my days are tranquil, but my nights are horrid, it is a secret that I may very well be taking to my pyre.

 

*          *          *          *

 

I was striding along, not thinking about anything in particular, when a warning through the Force saved my life. I ducked aside as two more shots from a rifle hit the rocks at my feet, leapt behind a boulder and ripped my face mask off. “What the FUCK!” I yelled, already knowing the identity of my attacker. I couldn't decide if I was going to punch him in the face, or hug him. For a moment I considered both.

“Ben?” my brother's voice called out, and I shook my head in annoyance and slowly stood up, my hands raised over my head.

“Yes, it's me!” I yelled back. “Do you always shoot first at people you don't know?”

“You're dressed like a damned Tusken!” he yelled, lowering his rifle and glaring at me. The wind ruffled his hair, and I was amazed to see that it was already gray. I thought my own hair had gone white fast. “How the hell was I supposed to know it was you?”

I sighed. I didn't think I would have to change out of my garb until I'd gotten home from Darahn's wedding. The last person I expected to find guarding my little hovel was my willingly estranged brother. “I was attending a wedding, and this was the dress code.”

He sighed and set the butt of the rifle down onto the sand. “Only you could make friends with those bastards. Well, come on in. It's your house, after all,” he said, turning and heading straight for my open doorway.

I was already stripping off the rest of the Tusken layers of robes as I stepped into my home, and could only shake my head at my brother's intense pragmatism. “Hello to you too, by the way,” I said.

He turned to face me, and for a moment he smiled. Then the smile faded as he watched me toss the clothing aside, getting down to a single layer of one of my old shirts and loose breeches. “You look like crap,” Owen said. It was probably a compliment, all things considered. I was forty-nine years old and looked to be hitting seventy.

“Thanks,” I drawled. “You look gorgeous, as always.”

He snorted out a laugh. “I keep forgetting how damned sarcastic you tend to be.”

“How's Beru? And Luke?” I asked, pulling off the cloth-bound Tusken boots and tossing them across the room, relaxing into a chair and gesturing for Owen to do the same. He sat, but I noticed he still wasn't relinquishing his grip on the rifle. Probably wondering if I was going to have any more odd visitors.

“Beru's good,” he said, acknowledging my queries with a nod. “Luke just turned fourteen. Good kid. Doing well in school, high marks in most subjects. Not so much into history, but considering that all the kids are getting nowadays is the spoon-fed glop the Imperials are spinning, no big loss there. He's earned all of the local piloting licenses, which meant a hell of a bribe to keep the information from going to the galactic data net, but worth it.”

“If you need anything—” I began, but he cut me off with a glare.

“I already know you're clearing the rest of the bribery path. I'll do my part, thank you very much. I still want you to stay the hell away from my nephew with that damned lightsaber you wanted to give him.”

I sighed, pushing sweat-soaked hair away from my forehead. “Owen, I gave you my word that I wouldn't offer it to him again until the time was right. Honestly, after some reflection, I think I agree with you.”

Owen looked suspicious, as if he didn't quite believe me. I decided not to mention that the time was approaching faster than he might like. “All right. Still, I think we should keep the arrangement the way it is, for now. The Imperials are getting more active in this area all the time. If someone recognizes you, I don't want them capable of tracking it back to the farm.”

I frowned. “Agreed, but if that's the case, you're in the wrong house.”

He nodded, scrubbing at the bristle on his face, definitely a nervous gesture. “Yeah. I've got to tell you about a job offer someone's making you.”'

I got up and found my water pitcher where I'd stashed it to keep it from curious seekers, and poured myself and Owen tall glasses. He accepted with a grateful nod, and I sat back down again. “What kind of job offer?”

Owen didn't look happy. “The kind from Jabba the Hutt, looking for a Jedi Knight. You, in particular.”

Jabba. The spit in my mouth dried up in a heartbeat. “Damn.”

“Uh huh,” Owen replied, pensive. “You can see why I wanted to get the word to you as soon as possible. When I couldn't raise you on the comm, I came out here to find you. The last thing any of us needs is that damned worm getting too curious about our little corner of Tatooine.”

I downed the contents of my glass in one go and wished it were something stronger. “You're right about that. I'll go tonight. At the very least I can find out what he wants, and keep him from poking around further. I don't want the Empire getting wind of his search.”

“I don't know which one of 'em pisses me off more,” my brother said, draining his own glass and standing. “I have to get back before Luke stops paying attention to his friends and realizes that his uncle isn't around, and asks questions I'm not in the mood to answer.”

I stood with him. “I wish you could stay.”

He eyeballed me sternly. “Yeah, well, wishes, fishes, oceans and all. You get this mess cleaned up. I don't want to shoot anyone this month.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “I'm just glad you didn't shoot _me,_ ” I said, and Owen uttered a rusty laugh before stepping outside, getting into his speeder and driving away without looking back. I watched him go, wishing our relationship wasn't this ungainly wreck of bitter emotion. Sighing, I shook off my regret and turned my attention to digging out my better tunics. If Jabba the Hutt wanted a Jedi, he was damned well going to get one.

By dawn I was standing outside Jabba's Palace, wishing I didn't have to be here again. I hated the damned place. I knocked, had an argument with the security droid, and stepped inside when the doors opened. Bib Fortuna was waiting for me, flanked by two Gamorrean guards. “Ahh, Jedi Kenobi,” he said, clapping his hands together and smiling to reveal some very unhealthy-looking teeth. “The years have been most kind to you.”

I snorted my disbelief of that little comment. “Flattery will get you nowhere,” I told him. The Twi'lek didn't seem to be doing too well with the progression of years, either, and had gone from being too large to being far too thin. “I take it you are still Jabba the Hutt's majordomo?”

“Indeed I am,” he said, switching to Huttese as we stepped further into the dark recesses of the palace. A B'omarr monk went trundling by, and I repressed a shiver. The monks might have meant well, but their means of achieving inner peace with the cosmos creeped me out. “The great Jabba is pleased that you have responded to his message so promptly.”

“I'm sure he is,” I muttered, and we stepped into Jabba's throne room together. Most of his entourage was asleep, but Jabba was still awake, and turned deceptively dull eyes towards me. Bib Fortuna scampered over to hide behind his master's bulk. I took a deep breath. I could deal with Jabba. I just didn't want to. “Greetings, Mighty Jabba.”

“Jedi Kenobi!” the slug boomed, and I shut my eyes and counted to five to rein in my temper. I couldn't mind-trick the Hutt, but it looked like I was going to have to perform one hell of a Force exercise to make an entire roomful of sentient beings forget that I existed. “So you are still alive, after all. I thought I had been mistaken in Mos Eisley, but it was you!” He chuckled, dripping slime from his tongue, and I realized he was so hopped up on spice it was a wonder he wasn't blind.

“Yes, I know. Unfortunate, isn't it?” I asked, sensing that somewhere in this room, there were weapons trained upon me. If it came down to a fight, I was damned well getting out of here alive. Nothing else was acceptable. “Your business efforts have borne fruit, it seems. I've heard that you have gained control of the entirety of the Huttese Empire.”

“I have, Jedi.” He chuckled again, reaching for a hookah and pulling a long drag from it. I managed to not make a face. If he was smoking what I thought he was, then I didn't know how he was even still alive, combining _mus'kha_ with _ryll_ that way. “Tell me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, why I should not have you killed and claim the bounty that has been placed on your kind?”

I glared at Jabba. I had one answer for that, and it was a damned good one. “How's your son these days, Jabba?”

Jabba stared back for a long moment. Then he waved his arm, and the sense of danger I'd felt dissipated. Not that I was going to let my guard down, but at least now we were getting somewhere. “He is well, Obi-Wan Kenobi. It is kind of you to ask after his well-being, as you were instrumental in saving his life.” He took another long draw from the hookah. “I have a favor to ask of you.”

“This must have something to do with that job I was hearing about,” I said, placing my hands on my hips. “I'm sorry to say that I'm retired now.”

Jabba nodded, the motion almost lost to the great size he had attained. I doubted he could even crawl now without mechanical aid. “Hmmm. I'm sure I could convince you to come out of retirement,” he said, as if pondering. “How about... Ah, yes. You do this job for me, and I tell no one of your presence on Tatooine. I will even forbid my people to mention such a thing, if anyone remembers you after you depart from this place.”

I stifled a sigh. This was why I disliked dealing with Hutts, and why Jabba's constant presence on Tatooine had always bothered me. Blackmail wasn't just acceptable— it was common coin. “What's the job?”

“As you know, my empire has gained size and strength, due in part to our Imperial benefactors.” He laughed, a raucous sound, and several of his patrons stirred in their sleep. “I have a massive load of spice to deliver to Corellia, and we keep having... difficulties. Between the Imperials and CorSec, it is very difficult to get my product to my customers. If you will deliver this batch of spice to my contact in the Corellian system, well beyond CorSec's borders, it will ease the demands of my customers for a full cycle. That will give me time to find another pilot capable of this task, and your name can fade to obscurity.”

I frowned. It sounded far too easy. “Just one run? That's all, and we part ways?”

Jabba nodded, licking his lips again and leaving a fresh trail of slime. “Just one, Jedi, I promise you. I do still appreciate your rescue of my son. Besides,” he added, his tone turning sour. “You Jedi are more trouble than you're worth.”

I bowed slightly, giving him a sarcastic smile. It was true enough, of late. Jabba could find himself the center of Imperial attention just from someone mentioning that I'd been here. “Then I'll do it. But double-cross me, Jabba, and you will find that you have backed a desperate man into a corner.”

Jabba the Hutt narrowed his eyes, studying me, as if realizing for the first time that I was just as much of an outlaw as he was. “Very well. Fortuna!” he yelled, and the jaundiced Twi'lek appeared out of the shadows behind Jabba's throne. “Supply Jedi Kenobi with everything he needs. I want that shipment dealt with!”

 _By the Force, I'm running an Imperial blockade to deliver spice for Jabba the Hutt,_ I thought, laughing out loud. The entire concept was ludicrous, considering I had spent much of my life trying to stop this sort of thing.

I sent my ship into a tail-dive that baffled the hell out of the vessel's inertial dampers and threw off the pursuing TIE fighters. The Imperial blockade was definitely a challenge, but I was recognizing the tactics and outrunning them with less difficulty than I expected. Well, except for getting shot at. But then, when could I fly without getting shot at?

The moment I was clear of the Interdictor's field I launched Jabba's surprisingly nimble freighter back into hyperspace. They weren't going to be tracking this ship, not if I'd read her specs correctly when I'd been presented with her. Really, if I didn't think there was an obscene price tag attached, I'd have been tempted to ask Jabba if she was for sale.

I dropped the ship out of hyperspace well into Corellian territory and reached out with the Force, even as I glanced at the ship's long-range scanners. If I was right, I'd just skipped over the CorSec Authority's blockade completely. All I had to do now was watch for CorSec patrols and wait for my contact.

Six hours later another bulk freighter, definitely Sluis Van made by the look of her, dropped out of hyperspace a short distance away. My comm lit up, and I hit the receiver for the incoming channel. “You Jabba's?” a hoarse voice asked.

“It's his spice, if that's what you're wondering,” I retorted. If there was one thing I wasn't going to do, it was let anyone think that I belonged to Jabba the Hutt in any way, shape, or form.

“No need to get all twisted up about it,” a voice with a cultured yet neutral accent spoke next. “Grab these coordinates and meet us there so we can swap cargo.”

Swap? I toggled the comm again, noticing as the coordinates came in. Selonia, if I wasn't mistaken. “I don't know anything about return cargo.”

“It was kind of a new thing for us, too. Don't worry, we've got all of the right passcodes so you can verify. We'll wait.”

I did indeed wait for the new batch of information to transfer, sighing in relief. A couple of crates of Corellian brandy, meant for Jabba's Palace - now that was something I wasn't going to complain about hauling. Leave it to Jabba to not bother to tell anyone until the last moment. The Hutt was probably hoping we'd shoot at each other first. Smugglers were a notoriously paranoid lot.

After we exchanged names I met the other two pilots on Selonia, and immediately regretted my lighter wardrobe. Selonia was bloody _freezing_. I huddled inside my short leather jacket, the wind freezing my ears, nose, and fingertips, and wished the droids working to load the cargo would hurry the hell up.

“It's not that damned cold out here, boy!” one of the new pilots called, an older Sullustan named Teak. “Not even freezing temperatures.”

I stopped shivering in surprise. “Really?” I'd been on Tatooine too long, after all. “Just used to it being a bit warmer, I suppose,” I said, and decided to cheat and use the Force to raise my body temperature to compensate. Beat shivering my ass off in front of seasoned smugglers any day.

The younger of the two, a human who called himself Karrde, gave me a thoughtful look as Teak went back to haranguing the droids to work faster. “Congratulations,” he said. “You're the first pilot to break through that blockade in over two years.”

Two years? No wonder Jabba had risked Imperial attention to pull me out of hiding for the job. He must have been desperate. “Just lucky, I guess.”

“Yeah.” Karrde looked me up and down, rubbing his fingers along his carefully cultivated long mustache. “You're either older than you look, or younger. I'm guessing younger.” I inclined my head to indicate the latter. “Damned harsh place, Tatooine. It's no place to live. Want a job? Gotta beat working for Jabba.”

“I'm merely doing Jabba a favor,” I said. “And no thank you. I already have a job, and it's not working for Jabba.” I grinned, deciding that it would be worth the look on Karrde's cynical face. “I've never even run spice before.”

“Never even—damn,” Karrde breathed, new respect in his gaze. “Are you sure you don't want a job? I pay well, I treat my employees well, and I'm earning quite a name for myself.”

“Again, no thanks. My current employment is sort of a permanent contract. Your offer is very kind, though,” I said, meaning it. I didn't know who Karrde was, but I had a feeling he wasn't lying about what he had to offer. He had a driven look in his eyes that I had seen before in men that were ambitious, but not foolishly so. “But if you mean what you say, then I hope you put Jabba out of business.”

Karrde gave me a sardonic smile. “Got a problem with Jabba, do you, Ben?”

“Karrde, do you know anyone who _doesn't_ have a problem with Jabba?” I countered, and he laughed.

Come on inside while Teak finishes up,” he said, waving towards his ship's ramp. I noticed the name brushed in fine lettering along the hull - the _Wild Karrde_. I appreciated the pun. “I've got a bottle of brandy in my galley that will warm us both.”

Five days later I was again standing in the center of Jabba's throne room, having an interesting showdown with the Hutt. I wasn't surprised by Jabba trying to go back on his word. He was a gangster of the lowest caliber, after all. I was steps from his trap door, staring hard at the Hutt and daring him to blink.

Jabba looked around, taking in the sight of every single member of his little menagerie floating in the air. Most of them were struggling to get down, while others were screaming in terror at the invisible hands that held them. I had to ignore it, though, because I had meant what I said. I was going to walk out of here alive. “It seems there is no one left to save you, Jabba,” I said, my voice pitched low, quiet fire in my words.

Jabba the Hutt looked at me then, and I knew I had broken through the thick fog of drugs in his system to fully gain his attention. “Very well. If my bounty hunter was here, you would not get away with this.”

“He's not here, is he though? And if you try to send Fett after me, I'll send him back to you gift-wrapped,” I snapped.

Jabba laughed, the sound loud enough to carry over all of the noise his people were making in their bid to free themselves from my Force-grip. “You have become ruthless, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Such a fine Jedi you are.”

“I told you I was retired,” I said, trying to listen for any stragglers to our little party. The last thing I wanted was to miss someone's presence at this point and wind up with a vibroblade in my back. “You know, there's nothing stopping me from picking you up, too.”

From the way Jabba's eyes widened, I realized I probably should have done that first. Dammit. I could have been out of this place already.

Jabba finally huffed out a stressed breath. “Go. Get out of my palace, Jedi. You will never hear from me again. The Empire will not hear of your existence, either.”

I inclined my head, saluted him with my unlit lightsaber, and turned to leave.

“Wait! Put them down!” Jabba roared.

I looked back over my shoulder and offered him a crooked smile. “Of course I will. The moment I'm gone from this place.”

Jabba's cursing followed me out. Not even the B'omarr monks scurrying from my path could dampen my spirits after that little exchange.

 

*          *          *          *

 

Lying on my bed was easier than trying to meditate on my knees of late. I could ignore the pain, shunt it aside, cast it off with the Force, but I was tired of having trouble walking, when all was said and done. My body was falling apart on me; I'd used it too harshly and too terribly for it to put up much resistance against the passage of time.

I was looking at the gap in my memories once more, trying to poke at the funny little nothingness that spanned almost three months of time. The artificial nature of it bothered me, more so now than it ever had. If it weren't for the faint signature of 'Jedi' that I could read from it, I would have been tearing at it in frantic desperation.

Instead I was wary, because I knew my own kind - no Jedi would wall off such a vast part of my life with a casual hand. Even Yoda, when I'd occasionally questioned him on Dagobah, had been reluctant to give me further information. At the time, I'd been willing to let that go, and now I was too damned far away to ask him.

Except…I wasn't too far away. Not really. The Force could grant me contact with him, if I truly wished it. I grimaced. Yes, I could do so. If, that was, I wished to give away our locations to the Emperor, and Vader, and get us both killed.

I stared at that dark space between events, poked at it some more, and sighed. I could not even pinpoint the true place where the block began, nor where it ended. My memories on either side were blotchy and unreliable. I remembered Asajj Ventress shooting poor, hapless Avery, and knew that we must have fought. I had to have won, to still be breathing, but I remembered little more than the faint sense of Bail being nearby, and darkness that smelled of bacta. Bacta was on both sides, though Yoda had said that the second bacta dip had more to do with helping me retain my shoddy connection to the Force than any physical injury. _Life creates it,_ he'd said, gazing up at me with a smile. _Makes it grow._ I'd understood what he meant. Bacta was alive and responded to the Force in kind, resonating around and within those of us who'd been fortunate - or unfortunate - enough to be dipped in the sticky tank.

I had blotchy memories of Alderaan - and not so blotchy memories of a threesome that never, ever failed to make my cheeks burn in memory. Gods, but I missed them. Then there had been Dagobah, and after a grueling few weeks, Qui-Gon.

Fuck. I opened my eyes and scrubbed at them with the heels of my hands. No matter what I did, no matter what I was focusing on, it never failed. My thoughts always slipped to my erstwhile Master, his presence missing for so many years that some mornings I woke up and wondered if I'd cracked and imagined the entire thing.

 _No_ , I thought, shaking my head and looking up at the stone ceiling. He had been there, and here, a faint presence in the back of my mind that became visible when he wished to torment me, or offset one of my foul moods with a smile and a comment that had always warmed me.

Dammit. All of my newfound strength in the Force, and all I could think about was the blue-eyed Jedi Master who was once again missing from it.

           

*          *          *          *

 

Chalmun's Cantina was not the greatest bar I had ever been in, but it had the distinction of not watering down the alcohol, and attracted most of the space pilots in the sector. With one hand on my drink and both ears open, I could gain more unfettered information in an hour than I could in a week of listening to the Imperial news feeds. I came in here once every few months, spent the day, and then went out again. Sometimes I heard rumors of other Jedi, or tales of skirmishes the Alliance had fought against the Empire. The Alliance had quickly inspired full-blown rebellion. It was good to know that, despite the actions of the Senate on that fateful day long ago, the rest of the galaxy was not willing to turn belly-up in the face of the Imperial Navy.

I paid my tab by giving the money to Chalmun himself, and the Wookiee veteran of the Clone Wars gave me a brittle smile as he stuffed my credits into a waiting safe box. [Get your ass home, old man. Sandstorm is due, and I know how far you’ve got to go.]

He knew who I was – I had served with him towards the end, before the Empire’s policy of enslaving the rebellious world of Kashyyyk had made free Wookiees a rare sight in the galaxy. He was also the most reticent, secretive bastard I had ever known, and my identity was safe with him. [Thank you, Chalmun. And I’m still holding out hope that you’ll give up that bottle of Corellian brandy one day.]

He uttered a soft laugh. [No fucking way. I’m saving that bottle for a special occasion.]

I nodded. When the Alliance liberated Kashyyyk, that was when Chalmun would drink. [May that day be soon. Good hunting, Chalmun,] I told him, pulling up my hood and stepping away from the bar, elbowing past a group of boisterous smugglers as I went. I shook my head as I climbed the stairs and stepped out into bright sunlight; galactic corruption meant that the smuggling business was booming. The pay was fantastic, as long as you didn’t mind putting up with Imperial Star Destroyers trying to blast you out of the sky. Only the best pilots survived long enough to make a name for themselves.

I made my way to the markets, thinking of nothing more than a pantry that needed replenishing, when I saw them. Habit made me duck out of their sight, and I leaned against a warm stone wall, watching.

Owen was grousing – I could tell by the way he was waving his arms as he spoke. Our father hadn’t been nearly so animated when he spoke, and I wondered if it was a quirk he’d picked up from our mother. Beru walked beside him, wearing an easy smile, full of patient tolerance in the face of my brother’s temper. Owen was looking more like my father every day, and Beru’s youthful beauty had been stripped by the twin suns, yet they suited each other, balanced each other. There was a quiet strength of spirit to them both, and I had a fierce admiration for it, intertwined with love.

Then I saw Luke trailing in their wake, and couldn’t help but stare. It had been a good four years since I had seen him up close. I knew that he was eighteen, as Leia had been on the HoloNet after winning Alderaan’s Junior seat in the Imperial Senate on her birthday. Seeing it, however…

I shook my head, fighting a grin. How in the Force had Padmé and Anakin, two beings of admirable height, managed to produce such short children?

           

*          *          *          *

 

The hour was late, but I turned the comm unit on anyway, already preset to the channels I wished to listen in on. Being on Tatooine meant I was far from the skirmishes the Rebellion was treating the Empire to, but I got the best reception on the back channels the Alliance used to communicate with each other.

The Rebellion had grown much in the years I had been in the desert, with a lot of codes in use, but since I tended to write a lot of them and send them on to the Alliance, it was easy to keep up. I listened for hours at a time, hoping to hear the voices of friends. Tonight, I wasn't disappointed. I had already known of his death. I had felt it in the Force, mourned his passing, but I hadn’t realized a message waited for me, transmitted along the subspace relays until it reached Tatooine.

I paused in the midst of my writing, glancing up at the comm unit as Garen Muln's familiar drawl filled the air. “This message is for the Alliance to Restore the Republic. I'm Garen Muln, and since I'm about to become very dead, I'm not bothering with the code languages, just jamming this out on the lower bands the daft shites still aren't in the habit of listening for. Our base in the center of Acherin's atmospheric storm has been compromised. I repeat: Acherin's Asteroid has been compromised. If you're on your way here, get the fuck away from this place. I don't know what the hell it is that's parked out in our yard, but it's definitely Imperial, it's huge, and we are definitely screwed.” There was a pause, filled with the squeal of jamming before the line went clear again. “But I can still kill a jammer with the best of 'em, you bastards,” Garen crowed, and I smiled, despite the tears that were already falling from my eyes. “One more time, for those of you in the cheap seats: Acherin's Asteroid has been compromised. Imperials are in our back yard, and we're going down, but not without a fight. Friends, the time has come to take the fight to the Empire directly, because they're on the move. Their plans are nothing less than total extermination of us and all we hold dear. I repeat: Acherin's Asteroid has been compromised.” Garen's voice fell silent, and for a moment I wondered if it had been cut completely. Then, he spoke again, and a grief I didn't realize I was still capable of feeling wrenched my heart. “This message goes out to the Protector of the Light, because I know you're listening. Keep watching after the Light, my friend. Their time is coming. I love you, and I'll see you soon, one way or another.”

The feed went dead. I stared at my comm for a long time afterwards. Garen was right. It was almost time.

I stepped outside and looked up at the stars. I was getting damned old, even if it was decades before my time, but my vision had never lost its sharpness. Somewhere in the haze of starlight, clustered together to the southwest, was Acherin. I took my lightsaber from my belt, igniting the familiar cool blue blade, and held it up to the night sky. Somewhere, far from the place where I stood, one of my oldest friends had died, defiant to the last. “Goodbye, Garen,” I whispered. “I love you, too.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

I woke up to a sandstorm howling outside my stone dwelling and the realization that my body was in an especially cranky state. I got up slowly, pain pulling at me, trying to convince me to give in and find some narcotic that would quiet it. I breathed deeply and concentrated, and within a few moments I had pushed the pain back down under control, where I could ignore it. I still had to use the Force to quiet my joints, because today they felt like someone had stuffed them full of miniature, rampaging Gundarks.

If the sounds were any indication, I wasn't going outside today. One of the monster sandstorms had hit, the sort that only struck once or twice a year. The fury of the wind and sand could flay a living creature to the bone in a very short time, but it wouldn't matter to the victim. The sand choked the life out of you first.

I made tea, tossing in one of the local herbs that was useful to us old bastards with severe arthritis. I sat down to my traditional scant breakfast, sipped tea, and smiled at the memory that struck me. The Old Folks Home was a bit smaller these days than it used to be.

I chewed my food without really tasting it, drifting in the currents of the Force and not thinking about much in particular. Then the current changed. “You are very, very late,” I said, hiding a grin with my tea mug.

Qui-Gon Jinn stood in my living room, looking rather hesitant for a being who was One with the Force. He looked dazed when he saw me. “How long…?”

My grin grew wide enough to hurt, but I was so damned happy to see him that I didn't care who knew it. I didn't care right then that a month had turned into countless years since I had seen him last. All that mattered in that moment was that he was here. “Nothing too dreadful, Qui. Your timing is just off by about a decade or so, give or take a few years.”      

His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Ten years?” He seemed to sigh, and shook his head. “I can't tell time worth a damn anymore.”

I started laughing and couldn't stop. The put-upon expression on his face merely added to my delight. He tried to look stern and failed. That gentle smile of his appeared, one I loved most of all because I had once seen it so rarely. “You know, I almost expected you to be cross with me.”

“Bah.” I waved my hand, dismissing the worry. “Qui, it doesn't matter. I figured out long ago that you would return eventually.” I looked at the remains of my breakfast. “I'd offer you tea, but…”

He laughed. “Thank you, for I know I would have enjoyed it. As it stands, I will take joy in your company instead.” He walked forward, the manifestation he was managing solid enough that the room behind him was just faintly visible. “What sort of time do we have?”

I thought about it, remembering what I had seen in my meditations of late. “About three days.”

His smile faded a little, a hint of sadness coming into it. “So soon?”

“Hey, for some of us, that day took a bit too long in getting here,” I said testily. “As it is, I'm going to have a hell of a time staying alive long enough to do anyone any good.”

Qui-Gon's presence didn't fade again, as I'd half expected it would. He stayed with me, a constant comfort, as I began to make ready to leave Tatooine for the last time. I bribed a Jawa into sending a message to Darahn Veila and her new family. She had left her tribe to join her husband’s, and now was days beyond my reach on the other side of the planet. She would have tried kicking my ass, me being half-crippled or not, if I'd left without saying goodbye.

The moisture vaporators I gathered up and placed in storage in a nearby cave - if Owen and Beru were still able to claim them, it would be a valuable addition to their farm. If not, the Jawas would find them soon enough. I had at least two months of water in the cistern, and wouldn't need the vaporators any longer.

Another trip into Anchorhead and I filed what amounted to my will. That was a surreal experience. Something about handing over a piece of flimsiplast that decided the fate of everything I left behind was enough to shake my serenity, yet the thought of dying was almost inconsequential. Sometimes... sometimes I had very strange priorities. The farm and everything in the house would go to the Lars family, and/or their surviving dependents. Really, though, I doubted that Luke would ever want a single moisture farm again, let alone two.

The journals I'd been working on I hid within the walls of my home. Using Force Illusion to create a permanent hiding place for the information had left me exhausted last year, but it would be worth it. Luke or his sister would find them when the time was right. Somehow I knew that their natural abilities would show them what others would never see, and the journals were full of the knowledge that the Empire had worked hard to destroy.

When Qui-Gon saw me retrieve the carved wooden box out of my trunk of scattered belongings, however, he materialized enough for me to see him. “Is that what I think it is?” he asked, reaching for the box but stopping, hesitant. The wistful expression on his face was enough to touch the broken places in my heart, and I took the lid from the box and held it out for him to see what lay inside.

This time he did touch it, or as much as he could, his fingers just brushing the hilt. “My lightsaber,” Qui-Gon said, wonder in his voice. “You have kept it all these years?”

I smiled at him, feeling the burden of time and memory. “It was the one thing I could not leave the Temple without.” I touched the lightsaber myself, feeling the resonance from the crystals inside. Our fingers brushed, flesh to energy, and the old, familiar tingle rushed up my arm. I sighed. “Even now, it still feels like you.”

I took the lightsaber from the box, then put the lid back on and put the box away. I caressed the control panel, felt the hum of the crystals the lightsaber held, and mourned at what I needed to do. I couldn't take it with me, nor could I leave it here for someone to find. It would have to be dismantled, the pieces hidden away. A single crystal from the three-crystal matrix was all I was going to allow myself to take with me.

“Obi-Wan...” Qui-Gon trailed off, looking at me with a strange expression in his eyes. There were feelings in those blue depths that I could not put names to... and some that I could. “About what you are planning to do. It... you know that you will not be able to speak to me—to any of us—until you are done with your task.”

“I know,” I said, half-smiling. He was right, but I had no choice. “I can always go pester Master Yoda if I get bored. I imagine he's been lonely.”

“I suppose he has been,” Qui-Gon said, giving me a sad smile. “You have always been the best of us, Obi-Wan. I wish... I wish that things had been different. For you. For me. For all of us.”

I looked at him, thinking about all I had done, all I had witnessed. “I have no shame in the life I have lived.” It was the truth, and it was a comfort when little else was.

“I know. I—I want to…to try something,” he said, the hesitation returning. I set his lightsaber down on my work desk, next to mine, and gazed at him curiously. “Just…” he looked flustered. “Stand still. I'm going to try not to botch this.”

Bemused and fascinated, I did as he asked, and didn't move as Qui-Gon approached. I could feel the Force, a whisper of power and possibility, and watched as his mostly transparent form solidified, the room no longer visible through him. Whatever he was doing, the energy did not stop building until he looked solid and alive, if you could ignore the fact that he was still blue and a bit shimmery around the edges. “That's incredible,” I murmured, stunned by what he had accomplished.

“I've been practicing,” he admitted, then lifted his arms, paused, and rested his hands on my shoulders. I gasped in surprise and wonder, for it was really his hands on my shoulders. Warm weight was resting upon me, so familiar, so vital, that I was overcome.

“Indeed you have,” I choked out. This was one thing I had not thought to have again in this lifetime. This was enough to undo all of my hard-earned serenity, and could destroy any sense of balance that I had - Qui-Gon Jinn's touch.

“My Padawan, my Obi-Wan,” he whispered, and the hands lifted, pulling me forward, and his touch became an embrace. Warm, solid. _Real._

“Oh gods,” I gasped, because it was too much, it was everything, and it was enough to make my soul sit up and breathe when time and horror had driven me to my knees.

“This is the only thing I can give to you,” Qui-Gon whispered, and I was shocked to hear the grief in his voice. “This is all I can give you to comfort you on the path you have chosen to walk.” His arms around me tightened, and I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, savoring this Moment. “I will be with you until that time, and then I will be waiting.” He stepped back, and I let him, though my first instinct was to hold on and never let go. Not that it would have worked very well. I could tell he had expended too much as he faded around the edges, becoming transparent once again.

“Thank you,” I said, my voice roughened by emotion and years of sand and wind. “For all that it is all you have to give, that makes it all the more precious to me.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

“Last night here,” I heard Qui-Gon say, and I looked up from where I had been half-dozing in my chair. I found myself doing that more and more often of late, wrapping myself in the comforting embrace of the Force to avoid the physical pain that had ravaged my body for far too long.

Qui-Gon was sitting on the edge of my bed, his fingers stroking fabric that, to him, would feel more like an echo instead of an actual sensation.

“Yes,” I said, sensing it the moment that the second sun’s red edge dropped below the distant horizon.

“Will you miss this place?”

I thought about my answer for a long time, dipping into the currents of the Force as I considered things. “The days are abysmal, the sand is intolerable, and I have never liked being forced into a vegetarian diet.”

“Is that a no, or are you developing masochistic tendencies on me?” he asked, offering me that familiar, wry smile.

“People keep _asking_ me that,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “You would have thought that the screaming and the trying to get away would be a clear indicator that I don’t like being beaten upon.” I smiled as he laughed. “But to answer your question… Go outside.”

He tilted his head, and I could feel him searching the Force, trying to decipher the nature of my request. I was doing a very good job of keeping my actions low key. Maintaining an element of surprise against someone who was part of the Force was _not_ easy. “What are you up to?”

“For a ghost, you are terribly lazy,” I mock-grumbled at him, pulling myself to my feet. Several pops and one happy sigh later, and I was ready to walk again. “Do I have to precede you outside?”

He gave me a glare that didn’t fool me one bit, disappearing from view, but I could still sense him nearby. I stepped through my open doorway, feeling cold night air caress my face and ruffle my hair. Qui-Gon had reappeared a few steps away. He was utterly still, staring up at what surrounded us.

I looked up at the floating grains of quartz sand that I was holding in place with barely a thought, smiling. We were surrounded by an exact replica of the stars that I had watched from my roof for the last eighteen years. Swirls of sand as well as individual grains floated in the air, layered upon each other. The impromptu model was spread out so far that I couldn’t see the end of it with my eyes, but I could feel every part of it. The grains were illuminated by the starlight and moonlight from above, and each tiny point glittered in the dark. “You weren’t the only one who has been practicing,” I said, feeling his delight.

He glanced back at me, and I was awed by the fierce pride in his eyes. “This is incredible, Obi-Wan,” he murmured.

“To answer your question…” I said, stepping into the recreated star map, feeling our presences in the Force twine together as he explored what I had made. “Yes. There are some things that I will miss.” I looked up into his eyes. “Some ever so much more than others.”

I awoke in my bed to angry joints and a fluttering heartbeat. I frowned, concentrated, and the flutter gradually became the even, strong beat I was accustomed to. More and more often my heart was trying to fail, and it was only through what I had learned from Qui-Gon and Yoda that I was even still alive.

This was it. I knew it as I knew my name and my place in the Force. I got up, dressing in pre-dawn light that was familiar to me now as Coruscant's had once been.

 _Should be an interesting day,_ Qui-Gon commented.

“Yes, but it's going to be one hell of a walk, first,” I said, my tone a grumble. My speeder had died an inglorious death a few months ago, and sensing what was coming, I hadn't bothered to replace it. The hike across the Wastes was going to hurt, but at the same time I didn't feel as annoyed as I'd sounded. I felt an elation that hadn't been with me in a long time. At last, things were moving forward.

Later, when R2-D2 came rolling out of his hiding place with a series of innocuous beeps that didn't fool me one bit, I could have laughed. In two decades Anakin and Padmé's astromech droid had become a devious little tin can, that was certain. Even Qui-Gon was laughing, and it was to that sound that I helped Luke pick up C-3PO and his scattered pieces. Poor damned droid couldn't have gotten a worse welcome home.

 _So it begins, much the same way as it began before,_ Qui-Gon mused.

_Not quite. Nobody's shooting at us yet._

_Give it time,_ Qui-Gon replied, and I could sense his wry humor. I smiled, earning a puzzled glance from Luke Skywalker as he piloted his speeder back to my place.

 

*          *          *          *

           

Luke took off in the landspeeder, and though I wanted to stop him, what good would it do? He was going to have to confront this sort of thing sooner or later. I pulled my commlink from my belt, punching in the code I'd never forgotten, though I hadn't used it in years.

“They're already here, Ben,” Owen responded, not even bothering with pleasantries. I wasn't surprised, but I'd still hoped to have given Owen and Beru some warning. “I was hoping those damn droids showing up was a fluke. Tell me my nephew's with you and not lounging around Anchorhead.”

“He was,” I replied, wishing there was something I could do to stop what was about to happen. “We ran into the group of Jawas you trade with, slaughtered out here in the desert. He figured out that the droids would be traced to you and left before I could stop him.”

Owen cursed, but at least, for once, he wasn't directing it at me. “He's too damned smart for his own good. How far out?”

“We're on the Jawa's trade line, where it exits the Dune Sea,” I said, calculating the distance against the ability of the speeder. Even with Luke's modifications, the Lars homestead was over two hours away.

“Good.” I heard my brother give a resigned sigh. “I guess the day I've been trying to avoid is finally here.”

I took a deep breath to steady myself. “What are you going to do?”

“Do?” Owen repeated, and he uttered a short laugh. “I think we both know the answer to that one. I can't afford to let them find out that three people lived here instead of just the two of us.”

I shut my eyes, bowing my head. “Owen…”

“Now, you listen,” Owen interrupted me, speaking quickly. “This mess is going to be over with by the time my boy makes it home. He's going to need you, so don't you screw this up.”

“I'll endeavor not to,” I said. “You'll never let me hear the end of it, otherwise.” I wished things were different. I wish I hadn't spent the last twenty years ostracized from my family. I'd done the damage, though, and could only blame myself.

“Listen, there's one more thing,” Owen said. There was a long pause. When he spoke again, there was remorse in his voice that I had never heard before. “You were right, you know. I shouldn't have kept Luke away from you. I just... I just kept hoping that something would happen, and Luke would never have to deal with any of this. What you're going to ask him to do, I would never ask of anyone.” He sighed. “I hope it's not too late.”

I heard the distinct sound of a power pack being shoved into place in a blaster. Tears rolled down my face, unheeded. Once upon a time, I had wished for more of a chance to say goodbye to those I loved. Now that I'd been given what I'd asked for, I couldn't decide which was worse. “Where there is life, there is hope,” I whispered.

“Beru's waiting for me. Obi-Wan...”

I stared at the commlink in my hands, feeling more helpless than I had in years. My only comfort was the faint sense of pressure on my shoulder as Qui-Gon tried his best to see me through this. “Yes?”

“Force be with you, big brother. I love you.” The comm bleeped as the signal was disconnected.

I stared at the commlink for a long time before I used the Force to fling the now useless device off into the sand. “I love you too, little brother.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

Some part of me was still amused to have located Chewbacca, of all beings, in Chalmun's Cantina. We'd met when I was a Padawan on Alaris Prime, and he'd served with distinction during the war. I hadn't heard anything about him since the Empire enslaved Kashyyyk. It was good to see that he'd survived. Chewbacca had recognized me as well, but did not shout my identity to the rafters. It had been his word that had convinced me that Captain Han Solo was our best chance to get to Alderaan unscathed.

After our escape from the blockade forming over Tatooine, I cornered him in the _Millennium Falcon's_ empty cargo bay. I spoke to him in Shyriiwook, even though I was out of practice, as it was Chewbacca's influence that had led me to study and master the language in the first place. [It seems like you and the Captain are business partners.] Most smugglers that partnered up were doing it for sex, or for money, or both. Chewbacca had never struck me as that sort, and besides, humans and Wookiees weren't compatible that way.

[Yes,] Chewbacca said, giving me a stiff clout on the shoulder, laughing softly. [You're just as subtle as ever,] he teased me.

[I'm too damned old to be subtle,] I retorted, and thought that I caught a hint of sadness in his eyes at my remark. [It's a good partnership, then?]

[Han's a good man, though he likes to pretend that he doesn't give a damn,] Chewbacca rumbled. [He saved my life, and had to give up everything about his own life in the process. I owe him a life-debt for that.] The Wookiee gave me a wide grin. [He tried to get rid of me at first. Didn't work too well.]

[Is he trustworthy?] I asked. Chewbacca's family had helped rescue Jedi during the beginning of the Purges. He would understand.

Chewbacca laughed. [He's Corellian.]

The Corellians were none too happy with the Empire, and CorSec had waged a successful war of cunning, bureaucracy, and bribery to keep the Imperials out of their system. Bless their stubborn hearts. [Thank you,] I said.

[That's an interesting cub you've adopted, General. Are you trying to make more Jedi?]

I raised an eyebrow at him. [If I am, you don't know a damned thing about it,] I replied.

The Wookiee laughed again. [I'm sure the Alliance will be glad to have you back. There have been terrible setbacks lately, and strange events are being whispered about. Rumor is something big is about to happen.]

[I thought as much. I didn't think I'd get called out of hiding for nothing.]

We spoke for a few moments longer before Chewbacca retired for the night. I was worried, and stomping on the old urge to fret. Something was indeed about to happen, but beyond a nebulous feeling of doom, I had no idea what. _I already know that I'm going to die,_ I told the Force sternly. _You could try being a little more specific._

I walked back into the main hold of the ship with Qui-Gon's gentle laughter following me.

Captain Solo wasn't happy when he caught me in the midst of trying to raid the pantry in the _Millennium Falcon's_ small galley, though it was a deliberate action on my part. “What the hell are you doing?”

I leaned back out of the storage locker, getting the good captain in view. “Trying to get a drink. What kind of self-respecting smuggler goes into space dry?”

Whatever he was expecting, it wasn't that. “Great. I've given a ride to a farm boy and a drunk.”

I was tempted to roll my eyes. “Having a great respect for Corellian brandy does not make one a drunk, Captain Solo. It makes one appreciative.

“Right,” he said, staring at me like I was some strange new species. I had the impression that Solo was in the habit of making accurate assessments of people, and I kept breaking his idea of who I was supposed to be. He shook his head and then startled me by giving me a lopsided grin.

My insides tried to melt. Force, that smile made the man look wonderful. Far better than that pervasive sneer. “For what you're paying me, I guess I can learn to share,” he said.

“I'm grateful, of course,” I said, applauding myself as he opened a different storage cabinet and the muted scent of corked, well-aged brandy hit my nostrils. If I couldn't use my talents as a negotiator to wind up sharing a drink with a handsome younger man, it was time to hang up my lightsaber.

“Where's the kid?” Solo asked, prying the bottle's stopper off with practiced ease.

“Sleeping,” I said. I was content to let Luke rest. It might be the last time he slept for a long time. As it was I'd had to use a Force Suggestion to make sure he did so, caught up as he was in grief for his aunt and uncle.

The cabinet I'd been searching in had shot glasses that would make any decent housekeeper shriek about their lack of cleanliness. I grabbed two, setting them on the galley's small table. Solo raised one eyebrow but said nothing. He poured dark amber liquid up to the brim of both glasses, then sat down and slouched indolently in one of the chairs. I took the remaining chair, picked up the other glass, and tossed back the liquor in one swallow. It burned all the way down, and I closed my eyes, savoring it. Corellian brandy had always been a favorite, and getting it on Tatooine was as difficult as getting Jabba the Hutt to show mercy.

Solo eyeballed me, and I got the feeling that I had once again broken out of a character mold he had in place for me. “Not bad, old man,” he said, tossing his own drink back before pouring another set for us both.

I raised my glass, this time with the faint motion of a toast. “Thank you, Captain. It's very kind of you to grant an old man one last drink.”

Solo paused in the midst of raising his glass. “Aw, come on. You're not gonna croak on my ship, are you? Cleaning up other people's bodily fluids is not in this contract.”

“Your concern is touching,” I drawled, savoring the brandy this time. I didn't acknowledge the specific wording he'd used, feeling a bit of sympathy. I'd always hated when that was part of the job description, too. “No, I am not going to die on your ship. At least,” I paused, considering the eddies of the Force. “I don't think I am.”

He stared hard at me. I'd finally managed to crack that smuggler's facade. “You're serious. You really are dying.”

I drained my glass again. “I'm afraid so. If you would be so kind as to not tell Luke, I would be grateful.”

Solo snorted. “I'm sure he'll figure it out when you die on him, old man. Who are you to him, anyway? You don't act like you're shagging him.”

I chuckled. “Does it always have to be about sex? No, I'm not shagging him. To be honest, I'd rather be shagging you.”

The Corellian smuggler laughed. “In your dreams, old man.”

“See, that's two things you've given me,” I said, giving him a twisted smile of my own. “A drink, and some new material for my nocturnal habits.”

“Great. Now I'm going to have nightmares,” Solo said, giving me another glare, but I could tell he was secretly pleased. Corellians always do like to be flattered. “So if you're not shagging the kid, what are you doing with him?”

“After the Empire's visit to Tatooine, I am his last living guardian, though he doesn't know that.” I nodded my thanks when Solo refilled my glass.

“Why would the Imperials give a damn about some backwater farm boy?” Solo asked, slamming back another shot of brandy. At this rate, we were going to make the entire bottle disappear. “No offense, but you guys are harmless, and they've got bigger fish to fry.”

“Luke has never had a legal form of identification,” I said, watching Solo. “You were Imperial Navy at one time—you know what that means.”

Solo sat up, frowning. “How the hell did you know that?”

I took a sip of brandy. I had made it a point over the years to track every single man and woman who was rejected or went AWOL from the Imperial Corps, and already knew that Solo had made lieutenant before being dishonorably discharged for 'misconduct'. However, I didn't want to make Solo any more paranoid than he already was, so I pointed at his boots. “Imperial issue, custom make, custom fit. No offense, Captain, but even a smuggler of your ability can't put together the credits for those. Also, despite the bloodstripes you wear, you don't fit the profile for CorSec.”

He relaxed again. “Yeah. Not a lot of people pay attention to that sort of thing, and the ones that do usually aren't in the mood to talk about Imperials. Or CorSec, for that matter.” He shook his head and went back to the earlier subject: Luke Skywalker. “So for some reason, you—” he pointed at me, “have made sure that this kid's existence never made it into the galactic registry. Now you're going to Alderaan, which is smack in the middle of the Empire, with a farm boy who's greener than any rookie. My guess is he's family to someone high up in the Empire, and the Alliance wants to use him as a bargaining chip. Or he's just as crazy as you are and is joining up with the Alliance willingly, which would also be bad news for that Imperial family. Everyone just loves a scandal.” He paused. “Or maybe it has something to do with that lightsaber he's sporting. There's a big bounty on Jedi, since they still turn up on occasion.” He gave me a pointed look. “Might want to let him know that.”

Thank the Force Solo had left the Empire's service. There was a massive amount of intelligence hiding behind that Corellian drawl. I rubbed at a smudge on my glass, thought about it, and finally decided against confirming any of his theories. “The less I tell you, the less danger you, Chewbacca, or the boy will be in.”

“Funny. It usually winds up being the other way around,” Han gave me a sardonic look. “Who the hell do you think you are, anyway?”

“If you are as intelligent as I think you are, then you know exactly who I am,” I said, giving him a flat stare.

He nodded, pouring two full glasses one last time. “Yeah, I know who you are. You're the crazy old fool who's going to get that kid killed.”

I closed my eyes, feeling the beginnings of a headache. I really was too damned old for this. “I sincerely hope not, Captain Solo.”

He sighed, and held up his glass in invitation. I lifted my own glass, and we let them touch just enough to make a faint _clink_. “To crazy old fools,” I said.

“And their cargo,” said Solo. “Try not to die on my ship, huh?”

I nodded, feeling old, sad, and horrible, all at once. “I will endeavor to make sure that you do not have to clean up after me, Captain.”

I knew that he would keep our conversation to himself—despite his words, the Corellian had taken an immediate liking to Luke. It seemed to be a rule with Han Solo; the more he liked you, the more effort he spent in trying to anger you. I hid a smile. I didn't need the Force to know that the Captain was trying to be respectful, in his own way. As Chewbacca had said—he was Corellian.

I leaned back, feeling the pleasant buzz of alcohol, even as I worked out of long practice to neutralize its effects. The Force prodded me gently, catching my attention. I listened, satisfied by what I heard. If time and life permitted, a close friendship awaited Luke Skywalker in the form of one rogue smuggler and his Wookiee companion.

The next day, I found myself in the midst of giving Luke the ultimate crash-course on understanding the urgings of the Force, while introducing him to the use of his lightsaber at the same time. It was funny—I had once thought Anakin to have been thrown into proverbial deep water when we first began his training, but we spent a year in the Temple getting started. I was introducing Luke to concepts at a rate that the Council would have been appalled by. I could almost see Yarael Poof having an apoplectic fit.

I had to admit, the thought still filled me with a certain amount of glee.

Luke saw my smile after being zapped by the remote again. “I guess I'm doing kind of bad, huh?” he said, offering me a self-deprecating grin. Force, but there was such a depth of serenity in him already, though it was almost buried by impatience and longing. There was a kindness to Luke Skywalker that Anakin had lost, even before he fell to darkness.

“No, no,” I said, shaking my head. “Well, you are doing terribly,” I said, with a slight grin, and he grinned back, not minding my honesty. “I was just thinking that I am teaching a twenty year-old man to use the Force, and I've handed him a lightsaber. There are some people I used to know who would have had my head on a platter right now.”

He cocked his head to the side, probably thinking of what I had told him of his uncle's interference. “I guess things aren't usually done this way.”

“Not really,” I said, thinking about how hard it had been to get the Temple to accept a nine year-old. “But that doesn't matter now. Times have most certainly changed.”

He digested that, and then raised his lightsaber again to engage the remote. I felt like crying as I watched that ready acceptance. He was going to be an excellent student—and not mine, as I'd once thought. Thank all the gods for Yoda. If the troll couldn't mold Luke Skywalker into a Jedi Knight, no one could.

That nebulous feeling of doom, following me for weeks, roared up without warning. Then it crested, and I stumbled, caught in a horrible wave of millions of voices screaming their terror into the Force. I leaned back, shocked, Luke's words barely audible. Just as quickly, the wave was gone, leaving absolute silence in its wake.

My heart fluttered in my chest. For a moment, despite my words to Solo, I thought I was going to die on this damned ship anyway. Then my pulse steadied, and I was calming Luke, trying to explain what I'd felt. I waved him back to his exercises, taking the chance to breathe. I wasn't sure what we were going to see when we came out of hyperspace, but it was going to be terrible.

 

*          *          *          *

 

I listened to my heart pound in my chest, skipping the occasional beat, as columns of stormtroopers strode past, ignoring me thanks to my little bubble of Illusion. Vader was near. I could feel him approaching, like a dark swarm of angry, buzzing insects converging upon me. His presence had locked onto mine with fierce recognition the moment I’d dropped my carefully made shielding after leaving the others behind. I wanted him to know I was here, wanted him to be focused upon me. It meant that he would ignore that other bright light that had boarded the Death Star – or even better, mistake it for me, now that I had his full attention.

I wasn’t sure what was going to kill me first – my faltering heart, or Vader’s lightsaber. I already knew, even if I had to fight him, that it would not be lack of ability that would bring my death. I would not kill him. We had performed that act already, and I wasn’t up to a second performance.

Either way, I was not leaving this blasted Death Star alive.

 _At least the good Captain won’t have to clean up after me,_ I found myself thinking, amused.

 _Your morbid sarcasm chooses some of the most inappropriate times to surface,_ Qui-Gon replied, and I could hear bitter grief in his voice.

 _Don’t be sad, Qui,_ I said, smiling. _I’m not afraid to die._

 _No. You never have been,_ he said, his voice soft. _I will miss you._

The words, when they came, were easy. _I love you,_ I said, able to speak my heart at last, after so many years of being afraid of what truth it might bring.

 _I know,_ he said, and I felt the gentle brush of fingers against my cheek. _When all of this is over, when next we see each other… tell me again._

Not the answer I could have asked for, but it was also the _right_ answer. Qui-Gon’s words left me with a sense of peace that I hadn’t expected. As he drew back, ready to wait, ready to watch, I left my dark spot in the corridor and went to find Vader.

I didn’t go far before I could see him, standing in the corridor ahead of me. Still as a statue, the hiss of his respirator and the humming of his red blade the only sounds to be heard. All other hints of the thrum of activity aboard the Death Star fell away, became distant things. “I’ve been waiting for you, Obi-Wan. We meet again, at last.”

It was the first time I had seen Vader since Mustafar, before the Emperor had encased him in that foul black suit to save his life. Oh, I had watched the newsfeeds, but that was nothing compared to standing in the same room with him. He was taller, or perhaps I was shorter. There was an air of black menace to Darth Vader now – no hint of the mad fury that had gripped him when he had still looked like Anakin Skywalker.

“The circle is now complete. When I left you I was but a learner, now _I_ am the Master.”

 _Still bloody arrogant, though_ , I thought with a brief spike of amusement. “Only a Master of evil, Darth.”

We crossed blades, and the blow was bone-jarring. The suit didn’t affect his strength, but his speed? I ignored old pains and shrieking joints and spun in place, and he met my blade again, but I could sense the effort it cost him. We were both worn and broken by time and fate. Unfortunately, I already knew which one of us was worse off. I was just playing for time, for as long as his anger was focused on me, he was ignoring that bright spot in the Force that Yoda’s old blocks could no longer hide. “You call me by my title and not by my name?” he sneered.

“Dark is what it means, and Dark is what you are,” I replied, and he growled and slammed his lightsaber down at my head. I blocked, swearing under my breath. His power in the Force was nothing like it had once been, but that suit was built to augment his physical strength. Blasted bastard might as well have been a walking, sentient battle tank!

We kept fighting, both of us locked in a strange variant of the Second and Third forms. It was so… _odd_ to be fighting again, for I hadn’t raised a lightsaber against another being since A’Sharad Hett’s aborted Tusken War. It occurred to me as I stood there, my heart pounding and vision trying to blur, that if I hadn’t kept training with Darahn Veila, learning to be sly when skill wouldn’t suffice, I wouldn’t have presented much of a challenge.

Vader was contemptuous, but that wasn’t new. “Your powers are weak, old man.”

That made me sad, for I had learned far more over the years than he would ever have the chance to. _The Force is my ally._ “You can’t win, Darth. Strike me down, and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

“You should not have come back.”

I gave way, backing down the corridor, letting him pursue me. Vader pressed the advantage he believed he had earned, and we exchanged a brief flurry of blows that only half-held my attention. Luke and Solo had been busy. I could sense him and the others approaching, and in my surprise I almost _did_ miss a parry. Leia was with them, and I hadn’t even sensed her presence before now. The blocks Yoda had placed on Luke’s sister were still fully functional, hiding her strength in the Force from Darth Vader. Thank the gods. For now, it was one less thing to worry about.

We attracted the attention of a cadre of stormtroopers, who marched over with their weapons drawn. They stopped a short distance away, watching the duel their commander was fighting with one lone, aging Jedi. They couldn’t be Mandalorian stock, not this lot. The Mandalorian clones would have just shot me and saved everyone the trouble.

The _Millennium Falcon_ was visible now. It would have been nice to have had the opportunity to travel again on her, for that ship had charmed me the way nothing had in decades. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the others running for the boarding ramp, ignored by the stormtroopers who were supposed to be standing watch.

Well, I was always rather good at being a distraction. I was even managing it while in the midst of what was, finally, a genuine heart attack. It hurt enough to steal my breath, but I been in crippling pain for so long that it was easy to ignore the thing that had the means to end my life in the next few moments.

I hid a wince when Luke called my name, the name Vader had never before heard and now would likely never forget. Time to be a good distraction, one last time. Beat dying of a heart attack, anyway.

There was a whisper from the Force as I made my decision, a sweet promise of peace and rightness. There were other ways to fight this battle, now. _I’m sorry, Luke. It’s going to look like I’m abandoning you, but I promise I will not._ With that, I smiled at Vader, who hesitated, baffled. It was a look he should have damned well remembered.

I raised my lightsaber and closed my eyes, and never felt the killing blow that he hadn’t been able to resist making.

For a moment I had the sense of a gray place, something in between even the place I was trying to go, and then…

…Oh.

OH.

There is not enough language in the _universe_ for this.

Comfort and joy, acceptance and welcome. Light that filled the dark spaces, dark spaces that softened the light, a song of balance that filled my heart and left me feeling like I had never wanted for anything in my life.

I didn’t feel dead, which made me want to laugh. I felt alive, more vital than I had been in a long, long time.

Realizing that the chronic, unceasing pain that had plagued me for eighteen years was gone… that was just a bonus. I would have put up with being dunked in a melting pit for this sense of freedom, for this kind of _awareness._ I stood there, my arms outstretched, feeling like I had stumbled across a home I had long forgotten.

Now I understood what Qui-Gon had meant by time being different for him. Funny how what felt like hours was only seconds, finding a bemused detachment in being able to turn around and witness Vader’s frustration at finding only a threadbare robe and a lightsaber to mark where I had stood.

A scream was what gave me my only touch of regret, for there was desperate grief etched on Luke’s face as he lost me, and with me, the last of his home. Of course, that didn’t mean I was just going to watch and let him get killed. _Run, Luke! Run!_

There was a baffled expression on his face that I sympathized with, and then Solo continued to exhibit the brains that had allowed him to survive despite having a mouth that would get most people assassinated. Luke shot the blast door’s control panel as instructed, trapping Vader and most of the stormtroopers behind the door.

Then they were off, and after testing the currents of the Force that whispered of the future, I dropped further into that bright, vital current, using a method of travel that had once frustrated Qui-Gon to no end. There was a lonely troll on Dagobah, and I was a dead Jedi Master that missed one of his dearest friends.

When I opened my eyes again, I was there, and if the sense of time I was trying my damndest to hold onto was correct, a mere second had passed. That was something I could definitely get used to. I still had a sense of Luke, could track him second by second if I really needed to, since I was using him as my anchor point. If he needed me, I could be halfway across the galaxy in the space of a breath.

Having to crawl through that tiny doorway to slip into Yoda’s home, however, was something that I would not miss at all. (Passing through physical objects while no longer physical was _weird_ and it _tickled._ ) Yoda was awake, despite the early hour. Considering the old bond we shared, he must have sensed my passing. He was sitting in front of his cooking fire, his eyes closed, though his ears twitched when he sensed my presence. “Done, it is?” he said, his voice soft.

“Couldn’t have been any more textbook if I had written out a plan called ‘How I’m going to get Darth Vader to kill me’,” I said, and Yoda sighed, opening his eyes and glancing at me and my new hazy blue form. His eyes were bright and filled with grief.

“Don’t,” I whispered, shaking my head. “Don’t be sad. I’m not.”

“Alone, I am,” he said, lowering his gaze.

“Not unless you kick me out, you’re not.”

That surprised a laugh out of the ancient Master. “One with the Force you may be, but Obi-Wan Kenobi you still are.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

I was on Dagobah again, feeling nostalgic for the taste of swampy air that I had once disliked. As I had once been warned, time had little meaning anymore. It hadn’t taken long before I had lost my sense of the days and weeks that passed for Yoda and for Luke, but my attachment to both of them kept me grounded in current events. Well – as current as I could manage. Sometimes I would blink and I would miss a month, and find Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Han Solo, and Chewbacca ensconced in some new Rebel base, or leaving an old one just ahead of Imperial forces. A few weeks after my death, Luke had lost his ability to hear me, but that hadn’t stopped his abilities in the Force from developing. I was just waiting for the right moment to give him the key piece to the puzzle he had been struggling to put together.

My memories of living alone prompted my long periods of time in Yoda’s presence; I remembered how oppressive solitude could become. Tatooine might have been isolated, but Yoda had seen nothing but the planet's teeming wildlife in eighteen years. As it was, he probably wished I would leave him alone, considering I kept reminding him of something he did not want to do.

“Agree with this, I do not!” Yoda slammed his gimer stick down in the dirt for emphasis, glaring at me. “Take this boy as my Padawan Learner, I will not!”

“Why?” I asked, sitting cross-legged on the ground next to him. It didn't quite work the same way as sitting here when I was alive - my legs kept trying to sink into the damp soil, and it was an effort to keep my form anchored in one spot. I was utterly fascinated with the entire process. I touched a blade of swamp grass with one luminous finger, delighted when the Force essence within the plant spoke to me, greeting me with a whisper of delight.

Yoda stared at my finger, which had merged into the blade of grass. It was wonderful and strange, at times. Being One with the Force meant that you had the potential to become one with anything the Force touched. “Learn quickly, you always have,” the diminutive master said, smiling.

“Thank you. But you're evading my question.”

“Hmph. Too old he is. Too angry. Reckless, is he.” Yoda sat down on his favorite log, resting his chin on the top of his gimer stick. “Watched him I have, as watch over him you do. Impossible, teaching him will be.”

“I heard the same thing said once before, about another potential Jedi,” I said, dropping my hand away from the plant and giving Yoda my full attention. That was almost as distracting as the plant, for I could see Yoda’s physical form and his presence in the Force that overlaid it, and the images kept trying to blur together. “Too old to find a Master. Too angry, too prone to outbursts of temper. Reckless.” I shifted, and the ground shifted with me. I hid a grin of delight - this was the most physically present I'd managed to get. If I could keep this up, I'd be able to manipulate physical objects around me again. Qui-Gon would have been proud. Or perhaps he was, regardless – I couldn’t see out from this layer of the path, but that didn’t stop him or others from peering in, even if they couldn’t join me.

Yoda's ears lifted as he regarded me with annoyance. “Speak of your old Padawan, you do. Unconvincing argument, that is.”

I shook my head, smiling; the memories were not as bitter as they had once been. “I speak of myself, my friend.”

The old Master's eyes narrowed as he realized how I'd trapped him. “Qui-Gon Jinn's Padawan you are. Manipulative. Underhanded.”

“No more manipulative than you, you ancient troll,” I grinned, and then I laughed as he swung his gimer stick through my legs. Tickled!

The manifestation I'd managed faded back as my attention was caught by something else. Drat. “Speaking of your future apprentice, I think he's having a bit of difficulty. I'll be back.”

As I left to track Luke, wondering what kind of trouble the poor boy had managed to get himself into now, I heard Yoda issue one last parting shot: “My Padawan he is _not_.”

 

*          *          *          *

           

If I hadn't stayed completely discorporal, so as to not to attract the attention of my former Padawan, I would have been pacing back and forth. Watching this fight had been more stressful than I could have ever imagined.

Darth Vader stood on the platform, holding out his hand to Luke. Luke was staring back, shock and heartbreak in his eyes. He was battered, bruised, and bloody, but, I sensed, not beaten. Not yet. Even after Vader had told him that he was Luke's father.

Damn it all. I hadn't counted on that, though I suppose I should have.

“Join me,” Vader was saying, and I could feel the Sith Lord's rush of satisfaction at the confusion on Luke's face. “Together, we will rule the galaxy as father and son.”

I watched as Luke paused, looking down at the bottomless drop that awaited him. Fierce winds blew his hair around his face. There was nowhere else for Luke to go, and both of them knew it. Vader was confident that he had won, that his son would join him, giving him the weapon to use against the Emperor that he had always craved but never attained.

In that moment, everything changed. Luke offered his father a tiny smile... and let go of the platform.

I could have cheered, because I knew then that he would live. Better, Luke had passed a trial more arduous than anything Yoda and I could have conceived of.

Darth Vader dropped his hand, watching, and I could feel his turmoil, his confusion. I felt a moment of predatory glee. This was it, the Moment that would be, born in the now. One way or another, Vader and the Emperor would fall.

 

*          *          *          *

           

“Why didn't you tell me?” Luke asked, with no trace of the bitterness I knew he felt. “You told me Vader betrayed and murdered my father.”

It wasn't an answer I was looking forward to giving, but he deserved the truth—all of it. I regretted many things about Luke's rushed apprenticeship, and my own death was somewhere near the top of the list. Despite everything, Luke had thrived, and I was proud of the Jedi that stood before me. “Your father was seduced by the Dark side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker, and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So what I told you was true - from a certain point of view.”

Luke was incredulous. “A certain point of _view_?”

I hid a smile. That particular lesson had pissed me off once, too. “Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on your own point of view.” I sat down on a log, one that had catered to many of mine and Yoda's conversations over the years. Even now I could feel Yoda's presence in the Force, sensing that he was somewhere nearby – waiting. They were all waiting for me to guide Luke one final time onto the path that would save the Jedi and strengthen the Alliance.

He also sat down with me, and Luke stared at the ground, upset and doing a good job of not showing it. “I don't blame you for being angry,” I said, feeling the past weigh heavily upon me. “If I was wrong in what I did, it certainly wouldn't be for the first time.” When Luke looked up again, I gave him a wry smile. “You see, what happened to your father was my fault.”

Luke opened his mouth and closed it again, unsure of what to say. Then he leaned forward, pinning me with an intense stare, as I explained myself. “Anakin was a good friend,” I said, my voice soft. “When I first knew him, your father was already a great pilot, but I was amazed at how strongly the Force was with him.” That was almost an understatement. “I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi.” I laced my fingers together out of old habit, resting my hands in my lap. “I thought I could train him just as well as Yoda.” It was not quite the truth, but we didn't have time to go into the reality of Qui-Gon Jinn. Things were about to start happening, faster than even I might like. “I was wrong.” Pride and love. Neither emotion was harmful, but my inability to teach Anakin to balance them had played well into the hands of the Sith.

Luke's intent look had not wavered. “There is still good in him,” he insisted.

I shook my head. “He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil.” Even as I spoke, I looked into Luke's eyes, and my conviction wavered. There was no denial in him. He had accepted his relationship with Darth Vader, and was moving beyond it in a way that I was both proud of and baffled by. Could Luke have truly sensed some remaining spark of Anakin Skywalker in the blight that was Darth Vader? I didn't think it was possible, but Padmé had once believed the same. I wondered if I dared to hope.

 

*          *          *          *

 

….. _My turn,_ Anakin said again, and found the place in his memories where a fracture had once healed... _……_

Vader looked up at his son, shaking, his life support system barely able to give him oxygen. His wound didn't hurt; his right arm had been replaced with prosthetics long ago. It was everything else that screamed at him—old wounds and injuries were keening, revealing themselves even as the computer that controlled his life support struggled to compensate for the battle. Voices joined the aches of his body, the cries of friends he had forgotten. An emotion he hadn't felt in years was rising within him. Horror.

There was a killing rage in Luke's eyes, his lightsaber raised high. Ready to strike. Vader closed his eyes, feeling emptiness where he should have felt pride. He had wrought this. He had brought his son down into Darkness with him…

…and he was afraid.

“Good,” Palpatine was applauding, approaching them at last. “Your hate has made you powerful. Now, fulfill your destiny, and take your father's place at my side!”

Luke blinked, seemed to catch himself, turning to look at the Emperor. Then he lowered his lightsaber, staring at his right hand, gloved in black. Vader stared as well, knowing the hand was prosthetic. His had been the blade to sever it.

With a shuddering sigh, Luke extinguished his lightsaber and flung it away. Vader took a deeper breath than the computer could compensate for in his shock. The lightsaber landed with a clatter somewhere off in the shadows.

“Never,” Luke breathed, standing tall and strong before them. “I'll never turn to the Dark side. I am a Jedi…like my father before me.”

The words penetrated him, stunned him as no others had in decades. His son was willing to give up everything in a doomed attempt to save one who could not be saved, paying the price with his own life. Against the Emperor's words and will, he held firm. He was a blazing Light, so blinding Darth Vader wondered why it could not be seen.

He watched, trying to bring order to his chaotic thoughts, as the Emperor's rage was given form. Luke's body writhed under the onslaught of the deadly lightning. Someone was crying for him, thoughts and words struggling to reach him. _No_ , he cried fearfully. _Skywalker is dead. Dead! He cannot help you!_

Luke was curling in on himself as another rain of electricity tried to ground itself in his body. “Father, please!”

The words tore through the Darkness, touched the heart he had thought long destroyed. It was there where the love he had for his wife was hidden, treasured. The joy he had taken in learning to be a Jedi, his Master's friendship. He understood, too late, that Obi-Wan had never betrayed him. In one long-buried memory he even found that his Master had been willing to give up everything he believed in just to try to save him.

Here he had unknowingly been culturing a love for his son, joined now by a love for his daughter. Too late again, he realized why Princess Leia Organa had been so infuriatingly familiar. She was a ghost of her mother, with all of the fire, passion, and life that he had loved about Padmé Naberrie Amidala.

Anakin was grasping the Emperor's withered body in his arms before he thought about it, not even feeling the lightning that tore through his body as he flung the Sith Lord down into the reactor core. He fell forward, gasping for air as the machine that supplied his oxygen began to die. He was going to follow Palpatine down into death. So be it. Appropriate, for all the pain he had caused.

His son pulled him back from the brink, and they fell to the floor together. Luke rested Anakin's head in his lap, and Anakin sighed, feeling his soul rise above the blackness that had entrapped it for so long. Vader withered and died, overshadowed by light from the Force and the Jedi who cradled his broken body.

 

*          *          *          *

 

We watched, together, as Leia came for her brother, drawing him back to the celebration they all so richly deserved. I felt free, for the first time I could remember, free of the burdens I had carried for most of my life. I turned to Anakin, who was tugging on his blond hair with a distracted smile on his face. “What do we do now?” Anakin asked, and his voice was as I remembered it, unencumbered by the vocorder and mechanical breathing apparatus. “I'm... kind of out of practice at this Jedi stuff.”

I could have laughed. I could have shouted my joy to the stars, and probably scared the fur off of the sensitive Ewoks in the process. “I don't know, really. I've been rather busy with other matters.”

“You were looking after my children,” Anakin smiled, his eyes alight with happiness. “You were looking after my hope.”

“Sentimental, the two of you are.” Yoda twitched his ears at us, much younger than I had ever seen the ancient Master appear. “Crying like younglings you soon will be.”

I laughed again, and then grinned as Anakin's daughter looked up as though she heard something. There was that Skywalker talent, all right. “So I'll repeat Anakin's question, Master of many Masters. What now?”

Yoda snorted, his temperament unchanged by his passing. “Ask me, you should not. Up to the two of you, it is.”

“Ah,” Anakin said, sharing a look with me. “I should have known.” We grinned at each other. “What do you plan to do, Master Yoda?” he asked.

A blissful smile appeared on Yoda's face. “Take a nap, I will. A Forever Sleep, perhaps I do not need. But a nap. Yes... yes.” the little Master looked pleased, even as he began to fade. Soon I stood alone with Anakin, with only the distant village fires and the stars for company.

I sensed that he wanted to say something, but I was willing to wait. I could be as patient as I needed to be. Finally he spoke, his eyes haunted. “Master, I'm sorry.”

I shook my head, reaching out to touch Anakin's shoulder. To each other, our forms were solid things, while anyone else could have seen the trees through us. “Padawan, don't you realize how unnecessary that is? Don't you realize that having you here is the greatest gift you could ever give me?”

Anakin laughed. “You don't ask for much, do you?”

All at once some of the joy left me, and I looked away. “I've learned not to.”

“Go to him,” Anakin said, as if we hadn't spent over twenty years apart, fighting a war on opposite sides. “You know he'll be there.”

“What if he's not?” I whispered, touching the braid that just touched my chest, the memory called up at will.

Anakin smiled, and he was younger then, unscarred, with no trace of the burning anger in his eyes that had once marked him. “Weren't you Masters always trying to tell me that everything is possible within the Force?” Even as he spoke I could hear a voice calling, one that I had never heard but knew the owner of regardless.

I chuckled, shaking my head and recognizing the truth of his words. “Go to her, Ani. I'm sure your mother has missed you as much as you have missed her.”

Anakin stepped forward, pulling me into a fierce hug. “You know, you’ve been dead for years, but I seem to be handling this much better than you are right now. Perhaps you should listen to see if anyone is calling for you, too.”

I started in surprise, even as Anakin stepped back, beginning to fade. Was anyone calling for me? In staying with Luke, I had closed myself off to almost everything else, needing to stay close until I was sure that my task was done. That responsibility was over now. Luke Skywalker was a Jedi Knight, the first of a new order of Jedi.

I opened my heart and listened with everything that I was.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Vengeance For Pain](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3697289) by [LightningStarborne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LightningStarborne/pseuds/LightningStarborne)




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